10 ways to figure out if (s)he really has ‘a black friend’
By: Shamontiel L. Vaughn
Tags: Thanksgiving, Race, African American, Racism, White Privilege

THE DONE-HUMORING-YOU “BLACK FRIEND” INVESTIGATION

Have you ever had to have The Talk with your kids?

This wouldn’t normally be a discussion to bring up in casual conversation. But in 2020, there are a lot of Randall-Kate conversations going on. (“This Is Us” is such an amazing show.) You already know that white parents don’t usually have to have this conversation. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know what it is. Some white folks are using their artistic talents to show how much they understand — years before Trump was in the White House.

But really what you’re looking for is for someone to not bat an eye if you bring up The Talk — because they’ve been there before and had to have a hard discussion with that “black friend.” If it trails off into “I don’t see color” or “everybody is so politically correct,” you’ve gotten your answer. This person only “sees color” when it means they can use their friend to prove just how not racist they are. It’s convenient but ineffective.

Photo credit: Unseen Histories/Unsplash

It’s a shame how the FBI treated MLK, isn’t it?

I have lost count of the number of times a “black friend” story has been followed up with a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quote. They’re almost hand-in-hand and a dull mic drop after the “content of their character” speech. Somehow the one-sided rivalry with the Federal Bureau of Investigation is clean overlooked. But don’t elaborate. Just ask the question and let the “friend of a black friend” discuss how much they know about how this peaceful protester was treated. Or, does the MLK history lesson just summarize that one paragraph in history books?

What are your plans on Columbus Day?

Trick question. If this person still believes Columbus “discovered America” with natives already there, be skeptical of anything else (s)he says. It’s Indigenous People’s Day and nothing else. This is the same explorer who thought the Bahamas was Spain, Cuba was China and Hispaniola was Japan. Anyone who is still feeding into Columbus earning this holiday no doubt believes Africans were “workers” who traveled on a “cruise” and their captivators were “nice to them.” (They also cannot wait to tell you that Africans owned slaves, too, but conveniently leave out it was more like indentured work before the Portuguese got involved and not even slightly as horrific as what U.S. slavery is. Or, that in later centuries, freed slaves used it as a transaction to get their family members and friends out of slavery.) But while places like Ghana are owning up to the slave trade before the French Revolution, there are still U.S. states who want slave trade history removed from history books — all while gloriously celebrating the holiday for an explorer responsible for spreading 30 diseases, wiping out more than 236K indigenous people and killing 25 million people in five years.

I’m trying to figure out my plans for Juneteenth. What’d you and your friend do last year?

If this person doesn’t know what Juneteenth is, just walk away. Not only has the token black friend not done a good job of keeping this person up to speed, but it’s probably Diamond and Silk. And those two are ahead of schedule planning for Columbus Day anyway.