Quitting Goodreads

Finding The Exit.

What's the correct modern way of saying "A lot of ink has been spilled"? Anyway, Goodreads and me, we're trying to break up. By trying I mean I keep hitting Delete Account, Yes I Am Sure, Yes, Really Sure, STOP CALLING ME and Goodreads... keeps phoning. I've turned off all my notifications, shut it down, sworn I want all my content to go away forever - and the next day there are new comments on my reviews. It's sort of like trying to leave Facebook, but we will get it sorted out. Goodreads never really met my needs. It had a lot of author sockpuppeting (people complain about Amazon's review inflation?). The interface was clunky. I never really discovered books on Goodreads the way I do on blogs. But Goodreads worked for other people so I provided content there for the people that said "Wow, I wish you'd do something at Goodreads too."

Stalkers & Pedophiles, Oh My.

We all know what happened and we all know why and we all know how things are being rewritten on an hourly basis to try and justify unjustifiable events. I figured, after the utter fail of Huffington Post that Goodreads was taking their time to get things right. Then they came out for the stalkers. Of course, it's all coded and worded and finessed and blah blah blah but I don't care how sorry you are baby, when you hit me in the face I notice. People tell you who they are all damn day but are very careful when they show you. Once someone is stalking their points don't matter anymore. If they have them, if they don't have them, all the same. What matters is that stalking is wrong and feeding into it by offering cookies of any kind suggests that crazy stalking is a good tool to get things done. This way lies insanity and AOL.

Every Moral Has A Story.

I realize people believe in changing things from the inside. People don't like throwing babies out with bathwater. That's just not me. Screw me over and I'm done with you. I don't care if you're an author with so many sockpuppets you bought a prosthetic limb or a web site that is trying to service too many masters and pleasing none. I don't have time to guide you into the brighter lights. I pack my bag and go. It is a very big internet. There are many places to see. (Places that enjoy having free content to monetize. Trust me, I'm old. I've been giving it away for a long time.) So Huffington Post and Goodreads will carry on fine without me. But I'll carry on even better with them. The lovely thing about removing someone from your life is that they're gone. (I miss Netflix about zero times a day.) There is always another path, often leading unexpectedly beautiful places. To find it all you have to do is wander off.

TL:DR - Westboro Church showed up on Goodreads' front lawn and Goodreads signed over the property. 

When You Need A Doormat...

I don't have cats. Let's toss that out right now. Not all white chicks like cats. Something I especially dislike about cats is they way they show their love. I don't need some dead thing twitching on my doorstep. Somehow I've failed to convey this message to my friends and therefore they bring me things they found on the internet. Today is all about some dude named Officially Ice breaking out 10 Reasons To Date White Women. I had to laugh. I've been hearing this nonsense for years. Let me tell you from first hand experience, once you go black? You absolutely do go back. (If you're running into clowns who believe this list.)

10. This one is all about girls getting their hair wet. I know girls with closets full of hundred dollar swim suits that will never see a drop of water. They have absolutely no intention of ever getting in the pool, much less hitting the surf. Granted, a keratin treatment ($300 every two to three months) is cheaper than a weave, but if you're doing hair color as well it's another $150 - $250 and  that splash in the pool becomes a hassle. Of course some white girls wear their hair natural or color and straighten it themselves. Same as black girls.

9. White girls can be verbally abused. This one is true. Many white girls, especially from the middle class, are surrounded by privilege. It is easier to lead them into an emotionally abusive relationship than a black girl who has struggled her way through life. Be careful you don't accidentally select a white girl who has been raised to know her value, not previously abused, or otherwise endowed with self worth. She will knock your head back. Unlike a black girl, she has the government on her side and can land your ass in jail for even minor events. You want to be certain you've selected a victim and not a women when you "put a little aggression in your voice." Remember too, her family can shoot you and the investigation is likely to go nowhere. White privilege can take away as easily as it gives.

8. White girls are unlikely to be named Shaniqua. Absolutely true. Alongside such white names as Katherine, Michelle, Janet, Paris, Halle, Nicole, Toni, Angela and Rose (or Rosa) are names like Krystal, Tiffany, Brandy, Brooklyn, and Candy. Way more classy. He's got us here.

7. White girls are freaky. Damn, I can never say that one with a straight face. Because it's so funny. Every time a black guy tells me white girls are up for anything, no matter how kinky I think he must date a lot of sex workers. The white girls I know sob at the table about the "sick" shit their man suggested. Demeaning things like oral sex, or taking photos, or in the shower, or on the couch, or sometimes even at lunch. Obviously, they sniffle, their man has mistaken them for a whore. If you want your sexual tastes to line up with your partner's sexual taste then just ask. For every white girl that won't  turn the lights on there's one who already slept with all your friends. Just like black girls.

6. White girls do not ascribe to the stereotypes of black culture. Ok. But I hope you're ready to go mudding after the rodeo and maybe get some golf in at the country club. (Assuming you don't work there.) Because one thing white girls love to do is bring a black man somewhere they know he isn't allowed. There's no real danger to them and wow do their dads freak out. Who needs to keep the champagne flowing when you can spike the drama through the roof?

5. White girls will blow their cash on you. There is a what's mine is yours ethic to many white relationships. Of course, what's yours is hers too. If you aren't bringing her the same caliber of gifts she's bringing you - well the door is that way. Most white girls insist on a man who can provide the lifestyle they expect. A man with a lower net worth is man who won't be around long. If you really want nice gifts pick a super old white lady. I know a few guys who picked up cars servicing the widows at Century Village.

4. White girls don't nag, hassle or expect fidelity. I suppose in the business relationship Officially Ice is describing that's true. If she's using you to get her Black Buck Fantasy on then what does she care about the rest of your life? On the other hand, many of these sheltered white girls (you know, the ones with self esteem low enough to put up with the abuse in item 9) can smother you like nobody's business. And those bitches can cry! Kleenex is not raking in the cash from the black community, that's for damn sure. Just look at Hallmark ads! White chicks cry like it's their job. Plus, instead of hassling you they just go crazy. There's a reason every other Lifetime movie is some girl going insane and leaving dead bunnies in your bed. White girls on a jealous rampage will fuck you up and spit on your bones. There's a whole genre of music about it. We call it Country.

3. White girls cater to their men. Can't argue. I know scores of white women who do not work outside the home because their focus is on their man. They hire a maid (or two) for the home, a nanny for the kids, a tennis instructor, a fitness instructor, a beautician, a spa service, a waxer and a host of other people to help them hone their body into their man's fantasy. They'll dump the takeout into the home china for your dinner and smoothly entertain your boss while the drinks flow. Of course these women are also sleeping with half the people they use your money to hire, but so what? It's all about looking good for you, baby. You're paying, we're all playing. Of course I also know struggling single mothers, hard working career women and ladies whose men wait on them. Black and white. You know, like people.

2. For many men the answer to "Have you ever received head from a white woman?" is no. Oral sex is a deeply debated topic in the white culture. Girls who preform oral sex are either whores or preserving their virginity or some combination in between. Men who ask for oral sex are either nasty, normal, or secretly gay. Really, it's a thing. It gets talked about. I know men who haven't had a blow job in ten, twenty, thirty years. They think black women give them up like little pez dispensers. I guess we all learned something with this one.

1. White girls are more fun. OMG yes. Here Officially Ice and I could not agree more. Need proof? CASEY ANTHONY! Did she let a dead kid get in the way of her party? Oh Hell No! Girl got herself a tattoo and went dancing. If you want to party till the body is found there are white girls right there with you. Marry one and you'll never have to worry about staying home!

On reflection I can see why these myths about white women have endured. I thought I was going to disagree with Officially Ice a lot more than I really did. All the uptight church girls, the hard working redneck girls, the obsessively jealous and the serial cheaters have one thing in common - black dudes who hate black women are willing to date them. Lucky, lucky us.

So, just to keep score so far...

One is cast as a "suspect" for being innocent and getting shot, the other is cast as a "victim of the system" for shooting innocents.
One is dead and his report card comes under attack, the other kills people and the media fetishizes his "good grades."
One is undeserving of life because he got some gold teeth, the other deserves leniency because he dyed his hair.
One is "propagandist," because his posthumous photos aren't "scary enough," the other commits mass murder and photos are circulated of "when he was happier."  
One is a "future criminal" for being shot with candy, the other kills 12 people and "was such a nice boy."

Have I missed anything?  Beyond nostalgia for the journalist's souls?

10 Frisk Commandments

Normality is part of the immense divide between what we know as white Americans and what we know as black or brown Americans. We base our assumptions in how things are. As a white American who has traveled between multiple class and economic levels I know that the way things are looks completely different based on where you are standing.  I have had the honor of multiple perspectives. One I will never have is being a multi-generational non-white American. I don't have to teach my children how to minimize opportunities for the police to kill them. I don't have to worry that my child, if missing, will not be important. The experiences of Trayvon Martin's parents in the terrible hours between missing and murdered will not be mine. There are many experiences I am grateful that my privilege shields me from. One of those is being unable to walk in my own neighborhood without police inspection. While stop and frisk does happen in poor white communities it is not official policy. Because we have the social power not to stand for it. The rest of America does not. Celebrate your privilege by watching the 10 Frisk Commandments. Get a new perspective.

From 1966 to 2012

Booker's Place had excerpts from the 1966 film Mississippi: A Self Portrait.

It's an hour you should watch. (There is a flaw in the upload, stick with the black commercial here space and the rest of the film is intact.) Many of the people in this film are alive. Their children are alive. Pay particular attention to the last third, where fear is used to control the poor white population.  As white people, we talk in coded language we don't really understand. What struck me most during Booker's Place was how little the difference is between things my neighbors say and things the 1966 Mississippian said. To some extent, this makes sense. After all, we were all alive in 1966 and we still are today. Race in America is an ongoing struggle. The current election is bringing a conversation about fear. People are afraid, without explanation of what they fear. They need to Take America Back, but to what? Which America? Racism is hereditary. It is something handed down in the things we know, the things we believe and the things we say. The myths we perpetuate in the white community are simply untrue. They are lies we tell ourselves and our children, lies we prop up with our collective reaffirmation that none of us are bad people. We are good people. We are fair minded people.

When you open the door to a conversation about race reality in America you ask your fellow white person to consider they they are not good or fair minded people. The challenge is to undertake revelation without blame. Booker talks about always smiling. He's not wrong. I have found the only effective way to bring people to the table is to agree with their major racisms while undermining the minor ones. With the murder of Trayvon Martin there is a previously unavailable opportunity for me to discuss race with the whites around me. While one of the workers on our property was murdered without much attention being paid to him, they do care about the innocence of George Zimmerman. Like Booker Wright, I have to keep that smile. I have to Yassir my way through the conversation. I've given up on those over 55. (Get called N'rlover enough times, and you get cynical.) It's easy to pretend this is due to my living in the South but 90% of my neighborhood is Northern transplants. Talking to the residents in their 20's, 30's, and 40's the same racism is present, the same arguments are made. Only the words change.

"The greatest trick the Devil ever played" is a common phrase used in the South. I think the greatest trick he ever played was the deliberate destruction of the black economy. Through the murder of successful black businessmen and the burning of black infrastructure, the black main street is largely gone. Black America is subject to a lack of eduction, human trafficking and exploitation in a way white America largely is not. We make the same arguments about black America we ever did. We have the deserving blacks and the underserving. If I make the argument to to my neighbors that George Zimmerman was mistaken in his assumptions about Trayvon Martin, the conversation continues. If I make the argument that Trayvon had a right to self defense, the conversation ends. Trayvon does not have the basic human rights (in the minds of my white neighbors) that George Zimmerman does. In fact (without fail) when I begin to make ground with them about Zimmerman's murder of Martin, the claim is quickly made. "Zimmerman isn't white you know." Because the conversation is getting too close to what we cannot acknowledge. Black Americans are still not counted as full humans. They are not considered worthy of the same rights as white Americans. Transgressions against them are always justified, by the mere fact of their being black.

Of course, your white neighbors will tell you, racism is wrong. Of course it's wrong that the income, education and employment disparity between whites and blacks is so deep. But...  There is not a lot of difference between what the whites of 1966 say and the whites of 2012. We word it differently, we speak less openly, we are less self aware, but the roots of racism run deep and are not gone. We have it in all of us. The challenge is to find it and discuss it without triggering the kill switches of guilt or blame. Like Booker Wright said, you've got to keep smiling.

Talking About Booker

Over on the review site I had some things to say about the documentary Booker's Place. Watching the film put several things in my mind, so I may be going on about it all week. The primary things I'm working through are how white America denies black America a voice, even when celebrating one of it's speakers. Another is the hidden face of white supremacy in modern politics. The story of N'r Henry came to mind, which is a story known to some of my readers but certainly not all. I thought as well how careful white America has to be when speaking to itself. You cannot approach issues of race directly, there must be hand holding. Lots and lots of hand holding. Only with the right combination of hand holding and truth can progress be made. Because we don't have to listen. Until the recent election, white America slept secure in the knowledge that we could simply speak over anyone speaking words we don't care to hear. There is a scene in Booker's Place where a man says he was a segregationist. His friends were segregationists. Everyone was a segregationist and they thought all the blacks were segregationists too. Boy were they wrong.

It takes a lot of work from a lot of people to get to a place where a man can say he was wrong. Even in the context of the film. Showing it to a mixed audience, the few white people immediately seek to assert their own supremacy and their own lack of blame. Faced with a tale where black families labored from dawn till dusk (yet always come up short), a well dressed white man* launches into the emotional tale of his black mother. Every Southerner knows this story. In this man's particular case some of his best memories are spent in the cotton fields, being cared for by his Mammy. She lovingly puts him down to nap on cotton bales. Those halcyon days are interrupted by a black man holding back strong emotion. He is angry that this man is romanticizing the neglect black children faced when their mothers were forced, by societal and economic constraints, into parenting white children instead of their own. The white man doesn't spare a moment for this truth, for this man's emotion. He is sorry for it, of course. (Is there a more useless emotion than being sorry, of course?) but he knows the truth of his own life and wouldn't change it for anything.

This is an important moment in the film for white viewers. He wouldn't change his past for anything. Not to benefit the black children, not to address racial inequality, not for anything. He had a need and she filled it. That must remain primary. The man goes on to defend himself against an attack that wasn't made. He insists that because he remained close to the woman for life that it invalidates the pain of the black man. He, the white man, being loved by the black woman, is the most important part of the tale. This is the Mammy Myth. It is a deep and enduring part of how we, as white Americans, view the black experience. There cannot be two truths - that she loved the white children she cared for (as she might well come to do) and that her humanity meant limited resources. A full time job and the care of the white children mean the inevitable neglect of her own, whom she deeply loved as well. The third truth (of so many) is that being the white man's Mammy gave her social status in the white world. This is status she may have desperately needed to hold. Rather than confront any of this, the man became defensive and claimed the truth of the black woman's life for his own emotional needs alone. We do this everyday. This is one of our best tricks as white Americans. There is only one truth, and we own it.

Later in the film a white woman, having viewed the 1966 documentary and heard the story of Booker Wright, sighs. She talks about having loved the white men shown in the film and having known Booker as well. He reflection is that all of these men, every one, was a good man. All of these people, every one, were good people. They were just caught in a broken system and doing the best they could. She is talking about a time when black men were being lynched in large numbers. She is talking about men who stood by while black churches were burned, who in fact probably participated. This is another myth of white America. The Good Person. In our collective narrative everyone is good. Things just happen. It isn't anyone's fault. Everyone does what they can and gosh, it's a shame that so many people die but what can you do? (I'd argue you could not join the KKK, but what do I know? Obviously not what she does.)

What Booker's Place throws into focus not even the most mypoic white viewer can deny. The past, as someone famously said, isn't past. We carry it in our lives.  Jim Crow is alive in the bodies of so many Americans. It colors our views, it informs our speech. When we examine the response to Hurricane Katrina or the death of Rekia Boyd or so many other events, Jim is there to tell us we're all good people doing the best we can do in a broken and terrible system that is still so much better than the past. Sharecropping was better than slavery. The 1970's were better than the 1950's. Today is better than 1965. Like the Mammy Myth, we choose one truth and hold it, ignoring all the other truths it contains.

*I realize that the people depicted in Booker's Place have been edited and that conversations contained within may well have gone longer or contained more depth than the filmmakers revealed. There can be many truths in any situation.

Penn State, Forgotten in 5... 4...

So while I was lounging poolside bitching about my free wi-fi connection most of Twitter was shocked (SHOCKED) that Penn State totally knew about everything and really didn't care about it. Um, yea. Are you new to America? The Catholics took a beating when it was their turn but nothing in the Freeh report is surprising. Five minutes from now you won't care about it again. America really doesn't care what you do to kids as long as you keep it kind of quiet. Mostly when we get worked up about "The Children" we are referring to a specific (and quite small) subset of America's underaged. Talking about Penn State - that's fish in a barrel, right? Why am I shooting? I suppose it's because the Freeh Report was what - yesterday? The day before? Today the news cycle wants me to think about "The Children." Not the ones that were raped. That would be crazy. Those boys are probably completely over that. It wasn't all of them. It was a few sacrificial ones so we could have nice things. Most cultures appease their gods with virgins, yea? What's important are "The Children" that were not raped. Their mellow is being harshed like you would not believe.

Don't panic about it. Penn State is coming back!

CBS news tells us - "The school intends to remodel the football team shower and locker room area as a direct result of Sandusky's crimes, university spokesman David La Torre told The Associated Press on Friday." I know I feel better. Can you imagine having to take a shower there? Creepy! La Torre says the plans went into effect as soon as they knew Sandusky was arrested but can't happen until all that nasty legal stuff is done. OMG, what if they install some sort of Don't Rape Kids sign in there? That might help. Redoing those bathrooms, that is absolutely the right step to take. I'm glad they were on that. You should read the CBS article. It's awesome. Like, some of the players feel weird about using the shower now. And coaches from other teams want the Paterno statue pulled down so players won't have to hear about all this every time they walk on the field. People need closure man.

That's why I was so glad to read Adam Rittenberg's article on ESPN titled Community Begins Healing Process. I thought the pervasive and unmistakeable disregard for the safety of children would take Penn State more than a few days to come to terms with but I was like, wrong. He focuses on the fundraising they do for charity, he quotes alumni. My favorite words come from a current player. "It's Penn State," Brown said. "Penn State's going to be Penn State." He's absolutely right. Whatever happens, Penn State will keep being Penn State. Some of America's children are expendable. They are the sacrifices we willingly make to have the things we think we deserve. If they are hungry, if they are abused, if they are turned over to the hungers of adults, it doesn't matter. Girls on the streets of New York, boys in the showers of Penn State.

We don't care all that much. The status must remain quo.

Sure, some people care. Take ESPN's Howard Bryant. He thinks horrendous crimes against children should have consequences. He thinks we should go deeper than new tiles and administrative musical chairs. "  If a massive institutional failure that allowed young boys to be sexually molested on campus does not constitute reasonable cause to terminate the program and force true reflection, true change and true reform, nothing can legitimately deserve that penalty. " Where is this guy from? And could we get a few thousand more of him? 

Tothiro Weighs In

Hi.  Me here.
I'm going to own up to some racism right here: I am an adult white man and I'm nicer to small black children.

Any social situation, and all other things being equal - if you are a small black child at a social function, a party, buying ice-cream cones, waiting in line at the toy store, hiding behind mom or dad's leg while bored during shopping?  My smile when you look over at me will be extra genuine, and as affirming, approving and non threatening as I can muster. 
Why?  Because I live in America, and I know the world of shit you are about to get or are already getting.  The entire society needs you to see crusty old white folk that are not jackasses, so make all the racecar noises you want.
7 year old speaking Spanish?  Hell you too.
Here are things I know: 
Many White Americans spend much of their time not noticing they are white, because they spend an equal amount of their time not wondering why the Cops just kicked their door in and retroactively brought temporary charges against them to justify that act when it was actually their neighbor's address on the warrant all along...
White Americans who do not understand that they are White Americans have tried pulling me into their collective thought process while ignoring my stated facts of protest. 
If and when these facts do get through...
(Oh you mean you weren't aware a for-profit prison system is institutionalized slavery? Take a look at Alabama's Death Row conviction rates versus the percentage that black on white crimes makes up of total white deaths.  Oh you didn't know that the laws were different according to skin color and socio-economic status, the latter of which is largely a net result of the first?  Oh you can't imagine a scenario in which a White homeowner would be shot dead in his driveway by police because his car that he was locking was too expensive to really be his?  Neither can I.) 
...one of two things typically happens:  
1) Those facts must be false, because they are not racist in their thought process, daily actions, or whole of societal conditioning, so they will just ignore them and stop thinking before they accidentally do it critically.  Which is bullshit.  Or...
2) I am just trying to depress them.  YES.  ABSOLUTELY, YES.  Aiyanna Jones, Oscar Grant, Rekia Boyd, Kenneth Chamberlain and an indefensible number of other people were put on this earth to be murdered by White Authority expressly to depress you.  They are Magic Dead Negros sent to bum you out.  Way to objectify their life into a consumable you can choose to dislike, bro.  Congratulations on identifying that a protestation over "feeling bummed out" is the only human, decent action appropriate to the news that when the large majority of White Americans turn on the News and hear "POC shot/killed/arrested" they say to themselves, "Huh.  I guess nothing's happening." 
You Blithely Racist Fuck.

Then this link to this outdated (since 1960) article in which the GQ author wants to collect friendly POC like they're goddamn Pokemon.

See the internet makes me sound angry. 
Truth is I like ice-cream, giant robots, deep sea creatures, dinosaurs, super furry animal things, and things that can be made into parachutes... 
I don't like people distancing themselves from their privilege or ignoring that it exists, because that shit kills people dead that deserved to not be dead.

I don't "talk to people as if they are normal" because they are fucking normal.  Everyone is.   What is this... Pretty Woman?

So I'm friendlier, and I'm more helpful, and I try to listen more if you're darker skinned than I am.  Because I'm racist... And some might argue that it's not racism at all - that it's a response to practical realism, cynicism, whatever...  There might be a lot of different arguments, many based on my intentions.  That's worse.  It isn't White Nobility Savior Bullshit.  It's that I know sometime soon, their day is going to suck because of the color of their skin and because of how the privilege of this culture is handed out.

It's prejudiced, sure, but it's also Racist, with a big R, because 1) I am looking at them and ascribing a defined value which is other and 2) as a White American I can be reasonably certain the cultural deck is stacked in my favor.  Always.
Just because I'm not wanting to light anything up on anyone's lawn does not detract from the fact that there is a little kid in my head, as Baldwin might say.  That I am in a position of trying to non-verbally communicate my authorization of them as an individual means that it could be nothing but Racist.

So hi, I'm Racist, and I try to own that.  I know other White Folk are too, and since so few of them are going to own up to it I am not about to forget it.

This Is Why You Don't Have Black Friends

An unnamed agent of evil and ratchet sent a tweet out with a 2008 GQ article. The author has undoubtedly been shamed, or recanted, or otherwise spent the ensuing four years paying for his ill considered words. That's the thing about the internet, not even death shall us part. Romantic poets think eternal love is completely awesome until they don't and then they write stuff about how to mourn them. Romantic poets, like while people, have serious control issues.

Devin Friedman looked around his living room and saw he was letting his days go by. He didn't mean to grow up to be this guy. This guy doesn't fit his self image. He has a midlife crisis and like so many of us having one, he hands the bill off to someone else. Instead of buying a sports car and divorcing his wife he decides that he deserves black friends. Devin Friedman doesn't ask himself why black people would want to be friends with him, because he is not looking for people. He is looking for notches on his belt of friendship that will make him feel better about himself. In the article Friedman positions himself with that arch hipster awareness that says "I know this totally sounds racist, but I embrace it so I am actually being post-racist in my racism. Dude, I find racism such a downer so it would completely harsh my mood if you took this in a racial manner." He does it by saying shit like this -

"I couldn’t handle walking around knowing that I have the same number of black friends as George W. Bush"

"I looked like an ass, but apparently that was part of the program. I guess I still wasn’t sure whether this whole thing was a joke or not."

"Mario, like a lot of the people I met, seemed to see me as something more than Devin the individual."

"And this project started to feel like the worst kind of tokenism—e-mail me here! I don’t care who you are as long as you’re black!"

 

"So theoretically I could go to one of these parties. I’d probably be kind of a celebrity, a token-y conversation piece—hey, let’s go talk to the white guy!—and next thing you know, I’d have a new black friend."

"Now I know why I wanted to go to a black party, I thought. Because they’re fun. Because white people really are uptight."

"I have better rhythm than most white people do because I went to a kind-of-black 

high school."

"I told my wife we shouldn’t talk about racial stuff. It should be like we were just having a normal dinner with friends."

Read More http://www.gq.com/news-politics/mens-lives/200810/devin-friedman-craiglist-oprah-black-white-friends-obama#ixzz209Mz85Xu

Bless Friedman's heart, he was trying his 2008 best. In his full article he says a lot of things that people say to me, as they explore the ingrained biases in American life. Here's the thing they almost never ask, the thing Friedman fails to ask in his article. Why do we/ they/ I assume that it is in the best interest of a black person to befriend me? When we count coup based on the color of our social circle we assume we have something to offer. Adding a black friend (or south asian, or any other non white sub group to the white mass) is an appropriation of their body in the same sense any other racist act is. You don't walk up to a white friend and say "I would like to make a white friend. I would like that white friend to display authentically white culture and include me in that culture so I will feel cool. I would prefer it if you wear golf pants, speak in a subdued manner and have a stash of private wealth. I will audition you between these hours." The very act of seeking out a black friend is a racist act. It says that you have the power to choose if you interact with black people. It says that the black person will enrich your life in a way that has value to you. That isn't friendship. It's emotional slavery. 

Black people know this. You are not the first white person to decide it would be awesome to know more non-white people. Perhaps you actually will become friends. Perhaps they will remain a prop in the theater of your life, a place to bounce your lack of bias, a card to pull when someone not beholden to you points out your bullshit. It's a great card, even better if it' s sex partner. "I don't have to examine my words or actions! I know black people!" Eventually they will tire of your benign racism, or your overt racism, or you will tire of their always being angry and making everything about race. This is because you don't have a real relationship. You did not meet someone, enjoy their company and gradually spend more time together. You made a black friend. Like getting a pet but they pick your shit up instead of the other way around. 

The answer to America's social segregation is not in white people seeking out people of color. The answer is in white people continually examining the unconsidered biases we all hold and working effectively as allies in eradicating those messages from our children. When you want to attack generational poverty you give up on the parents. The focus of all, parent and child alike, is on the next generation. We lift them up on our backs because lifting them in our arms leaves us all standing on the ground. Do not make black friends. Help your children become people anyone of any color or background would enjoy befriending. Raise kids who care more when Rekia Boyd is murdered, who keep Aiyana Jones in their hearts, instead of kids who try to accessorize their life with splashes of color.