Not like “I went to school with one” but have had an actual friendship?
I’ve had a couple of conversations recently where people have confidently said things about the Black community that are ridiculously incorrect. The kind of shit where you can tell they grew up in a very white community and learned about Black history as a college freshman.
Disclaimer: I am white, but I grew up in a Black neighborhood. I was one of 3 white kids in my elementary school lol, including my brother.
Ah that’s the thing, I’m in the opposite situation. I live in San Francisco, so I have more cultures than I can shake a stick at just in my immediate friend and coworker circle. My closest coworker is Tunisian, my roommate is Chilean, the guy I volunteer with is Estonian, the last girl I dated was Korean (all of which, meaning, immigrated to the US from those countries, not my ancestry is from so and so)…as I mentioned in the OP, I grew up in a very Black community…and yet, my closest friends are the most Starbucks white you can imagine.
Opportunity is not the issue. It’s the actual diving in. The familiar is comfortable.
Ahh, I see. Well, it’s natural to congregate to groups you’re similar to - no one likes feeling uncomfortable. But a couple months of being uncomfortable is what it takes. Find some sort of common ground and work from there. Even if you remove any biases of your own, there are those who won’t do the same for you. It isn’t right, but it’s understandable. If someone doesn’t reciprocate any meaningful interest, move on to the next person. It just takes persistence and the desire to interact with other cultures. As I mentioned in my post, building stigmas and unconscious biases down the road often happen because there’s little to no real personal interaction with other groups. Not saying you will, just something I’ve noticed in people through the years, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.
Excellent point. Maybe I can think of it like inoculation against bigotry.