A study was done some years ago in the States on interracial friendships. In a 100-friend scenario, the average white person has 91 white friends, one each of black, Latino, Asian, mixed-race, and other races; and three friends of unknown race. On the other hand, the average black person has 83 black friends, eight white friends, two Latino friends, zero Asian friends, three mixed-race friends, one other race friend, and four friends of unknown
race.
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I know that in the US and the UK where I live, there are more white people than black, so exposing yourself directly to another race could be challenging for some. But there are other ways for you to engage.
Read black books.
In the pages of books immerse yourself in cities, countries, and cultures that are unfamiliar. Get to know people who are just like you who dream, love, live, and die. I love reading, and my books' choices were and have never been based on the ethnicity or the colour of the author's skin. That discipline of casting my literary net widely was acquired from going to school in Jamaica. We were encouraged to read widely, and because of that, I can walk through the
world as a fully paid-up member of the human race, mainly due to my reading habits. I have my fears and prejudices like all of us, but I will hang on to my belief in human goodness and judge you according to your conduct. The seed for that point of view came from the vicarious lives I lived through books. And it prepared me for the world when I started travelling for real.
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Police officers shoot unarmed Black men because they "feel afraid," yet calmly deescalate conflicts with fully armed white men because they "knew they didn't pose a real threat." People clutch their purses or reach for their wallets when they see a group of young Black boys walking toward them, but relax into memories of what it means to be young and carefree when a group of "clean-cut" white boys fucking around bumps into them. If you had expanded your
horizons by travel, books, and conversation, if you had real personal experiences with a diverse range of Black people, then those unfair, ignorant, brutal, and violent acts against us would be less prevalent. But some are satisfied with the biased and lazy-assed depictions of black people in the media and class it as truth.
Read black books.
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It all comes down to perception. Our perceptions are formed based on a combination of our real, lived experiences, and the images and stories we've been exposed to that fill in the rest. If you have no real lived personal experiences with black people (at home, in your friend circles, or at work) to draw upon. You're left with the images depicted in the media, in film, television, and literature that you choose to consume. So why not make your media
consumption a healthy one and experience the diverse black voices through books.
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I'm not begging white folk to read our books; obviously, the choice is theirs - black creatives will manage - we've been judged by our skin colour and not our brilliance for centuries. The one thing I'm sure of is that we wouldn't need Black Lives Matter if for hundreds of years we hadn't had Black Lives don't matter. Reading black books is the least effort you can do to begin the process of challenging the misrepresentations in the
world.
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"We are more alike, my friends than we are unalike."
Maya Angelou
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Maybe with some effort to learn more about the humanity of others, we will see less of our brothers and sisters being murdered in front of our eyes and think its acceptable.
Who Knows.
