Dear White Women: Here’s Why It’s Hard to Be Friends With You
By: Savannah Worley
Tags: Internalized Oppression, Patriarchy, Racism, White Supremacy

White women’s aggression

When most people see the word “aggression,” many people imagine fist fights, name-calling, shouting, and possibly the throwing of dishes.

They never see relational aggression as multiple punches in the face from multiple people. They don’t see gossip as name-calling and shouting. They don’t see passive-aggression as the same as throwing a plate on the ground.

In order to keep their place within society’s hierarchy, white women can’t be openly aggressive like white men can without being thought of as “hysterical.” So they practice their aggression covertly, sometimes without even realizing what they are doing because their (valid) anger is so buried they don’t even realize it’s there.

Most of the abuse I’ve experienced from white women came in a covert form. I’ve had nasty rumors spread about me, which ruined me emotionally, socially, and even financially (it’s hard to keep a job where a white co-worker turns your supervisors against you, all of whom are also white women and more likely to be sympathetic to your co-worker).

I’ve experienced triangulation, which is where a person within a conflict invites a third party into it instead of dealing with the situation themselves. The person forming the “triangle” controls all of the communication, often telling the third party what a horrible person their (in this context, often imagined) adversary is. It’s a tactic used to alienate and isolate someone.

Lots of people who don’t even know me think that I’m just the worst person ever thanks to white women I had mistaken as friends. In conflicts between white women and Black women, triangulation especially works out well for the white woman if they can get a white man or a second Black person involved, so long as they maintain control of all of the communication.

White women are the reason why I have very little tolerance for passive-aggression. Passive-aggression isn’t just being indirect or making sarcastic remarks. It can be avoiding somebody, playing the silent treatment, stonewalling, lying (either blatantly or by omission), and other unseen tactics used to maintain total control over a relationship which should involve two people, not just one.

You might argue that women in general behave this way towards each other, which is sad. But within the context of relationships between white women and Black women, the effects of their toxic behavior is devastating, even life threatening. I’ve had a white woman make a false report about me to the police. I’ve had white men threaten violence on me because of the words of a white woman. I’ve had white women attempt to get me fired from jobs, which would have prevented me from supporting myself.

They did all of that because they felt they were losing control over our friendship or whatever connection we had. White women are taught that they are above Black women and therefore they should have power over us.

It’s true that it can be dangerous for white women to be open and honest because they’re constantly under scrutiny within a patriarchal society. So they adopted covert and manipulative tactics just so that they can survive, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You never give the devil the truth.

The problem is, white women view Black women as devils, too. We’re supposed to be objects to be pitied. Mammies for when they need an emotional dumpster. Background props for their life story. At best, we’re sidekicks with no life story of our own.

However, because Black women are human beings and not stereotypes or background props, we will never completely fit that role. This is especially true within friendships, where we are supposed to be able to let our guards down and be ourselves.

Once white women realize Black women are not what they were taught we were supposed to be, we become competition. We become threats to be eliminated as quietly as possible.

I became a more frequent target of white women’s aggression when I began to be more vocal about my thoughts and experiences regarding white supremacy. I made the couple of white women friends in particular feel very uncomfortable and threatened. We stopped being friends because they pulled almost all of the above tactics on me and then demonized me once I realized what they were doing. It was easy for them to demonize me because they were aware that I also suffer from mental illnesses, so they used that against me, too. It took almost very little effort on their end to paint me as the “angry Black woman” out to get them.

Obviously, our breakup was for the better.