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You put your foot in your mouth over race stuff and wonder, “What’s that doing there?”
Often times white people don’t know what they’re saying, and by the time they figure it out, it’s too late. Living in a white area all my life, I’ve come across some nuggets.
I used to work for a lovely older white woman. We became close and she invited my friend and me to her wedding to perform a traditional Guinean dance of celebration. She called me up beforehand and said, “Just so you know, there won’t be any other black people here. Not that I don’t have any black friends. They just won’t be here.”
But I find it interesting that she was worried enough to call me, but not enough to reflect on why I would be the only black person at the wedding. If it weren’t for me attending the wedding, she wouldn’t have any problem with a white as snow wedding.
As a transracial adoptee, I often talk with white parents thinking of adopting or who have adopted children of color. Once a white coworker for whom I babysat told me she moved to the area so that her Ethiopian daughter could be around more people of color. The unspoken idea is that without a black daughter, it wouldn’t be important to be around people of color. The undercurrent of that idea is that being around people of color in itself isn’t important, it’s only important so that your…
