Why was I BU? Race related.

[asixthofafathom]

I know I was BU and I am sorry about it, but I don't understand.

I have a black friend who is really articulate and passionate and posts a lot on social media about race - the perfect person, I thought, to ask what to read and what not to read at the moment, so as to avoid stuff that is inaccurate and offensive and hear only the authentic voice of those being oppressed.

She went ballistic and unfriended me, then proceeded to rant publicly about how offensive, selfish and insensitive my request was. Her friends chimed in and started calling me names.

I accept that I was wrong. I know it was poor timing, she doesn't owe me anything and it's not her job to educate me. But I genuinely just wanted to learn and understand and show willingness to listen rather than just assume that I understand an experience that I don't share.

Why was I so wrong to ask? Please don't bite my head off (unless I deserve it), I genuinely meant well and was trying to show respect, and now I feel awful.

*deems, not seems. Damn you autocorrect.

I think the adjective "articulate" can be ascribed to any race.
In OP's defence, I have been seeing a lot about how white people should be actively speaking up against racism. Reading this thread, one might be a little anxious about how to best do that without causing offence. FWIW, I think OP was a little clumsy, naive and thoughtless, possibly with a dash of virtue signalling and yes, we don't know what was actually said, but I don't think harm was meant.

Its interesting. I read it and thought, it's clear cut that the OP didn't do anything wrong. It seems I'm in the minority. I don't think it was offensive at all.

I think we make far too much out of race and it creates a big divide.

There are a lot of disingenuous posts here about the fact that if someone is all about X on social media it is fine to ask that person to educate you/give you some pointers. And yes, that is fine. However George Floyd and the aftermath of his murder isn't a new thing. Racism is here constantly bubbling under and you can ask your friends who post about it for hints, tips and advice at any time. And yet at a time when black people are likely to be feeling overwhelmed - BAM! - now you ask them about it?
Do you all see what the difference is between asking at any time and asking at a time when everything is chaotic?

Same with "my articulate black friend". I get OP was (probably) trying to emphasise that it's someone with experience of racism etc, but really. Does nobody see how patronising this is? My articulate feminist friend… my articulate Chinese friend… my articulate white friend…

Articulate friend who posts a lot about racism - you don't need to point out their race for that.

Finally, the analogies. Football - meh. but this one is interesiting
I know of no black females in my bit of rural England. Best guess is you have no knowledge of farming. So why would I know any more about your struggles than ours with irrigation, crop pricing or rural poverty All issues effect us both. Both need to understand the issues of the other

Well, quite. It is very much ok for your friends to ask you about irrigation, lambing, harvest, crop pricing and rural poverty. But not at planting time, lambing season, during the harvest and while you're negotiating with supermarkets. Certainly not when you're blockading ports with your tractors to protest rural poverty.

@Celerysam I really can't decide whether your post is satirical or not.

Nobby so after what is happening in America many people are posting on SM about their experiences and points of view. Loads posting about black lives matter and most of these posts are being met with negativity. "All lives matter", "can't blame the police for being rough if they are going to protest" etc.
I can completely see why someone who is and has always been outspoken about racial issues is probably receiving higher engagement rates, both negative and positive. So someone emailing them out of the blue asking for books to better understand what's going on, to me, seems very disingenuous. Either they've stuck their head in the sand up until it's 'fashionable' to care, or they don't quite believe the 'hype', or they are desperately trying to show that they are not racist by "showing willingness to listen".
If someone was genuinely interested in learning about the subject, I would expect them to, at the very least, start some research themselves. Use online recommendations, look at charities which help fight racism and/or support those affected, identify some more outspoken people on social media to follow, read the things they post, engage with the topic etc.

Perhaps if they friend had seem some solidarity from the OP in the past, directly or indirectly, she might have been more willing to help.

Articulate friend who posts a lot about racism - you don't need to point out their race for that.

She actually did for the context of the post.
I have a black friend who is really articulate and passionate and posts a lot on social media about race -
Otherwise she would be told of by not saying the race and half a thread would be spent on "why can't you say she is black? Got issues with it?"...

Just because OP is a long term poster, doesn’t mean she isn’t race baiting. To post a deliberately provocative opening post which frames this as her politely asking her black friend a well-intentioned question and getting an aggressive, stereotypical ‘angry black woman’ response, and then OP not returning to the thread again, is very clearly a racist agenda. And it worked - look how many racists it brought out of the woodwork.

Can't seem to quote but I think @Nonotthatdr nails it with "A friend posted a list of things not to say, I don't know what I should say...but then if I don't say anything, I'm wrong". THIS. There are posts literally everywhere atm saying if you are white and say nothing, your silence is violence. And yet, it's incredibly dangerous to try and say anything - as the OP discovered- as everything said by 'a privileged little white person' is automatically wrong because there is absolutely no way we can inherently understand or know, yet there is no correct way of speaking out or engaging. As @AutoCarrot keeps saying and being ignored - why did everyone just assume the OP is white? She could be Asian, black, or White Jewish...anything. And if she were an EM, does that change things? Is it more acceptable to be ignorant, to try to engage if you are a minority group? Whereas if you are white, at the moment you just have to accept that you must not engage because it is insensitive and you are too privileged to ever understand. You must educate your children because that is your duty, but without discussion with POC, because that will be taken wrongly, so they can only be educated from a white perspective. And whatever you try to do and whatever interest you take, you must accept that you are guilty of White Privilege by birth and must take that graciously as black people have lived with the oppression for their skin colour for so long. It's like some sort of overdue prejudice, if you like. I struggle to see how this logic is helping??

I don't know, there are lots of posts on social media saying how offensive it is to be asked, and that people should be doing the legwork themselves. If the OPs friend is actively engaged no doubt she has seen them and agrees and her response has been amplified by being told that it's bad and selfish as well as feeling it herself.

@Sussed you have written it perfectly!

Hi, op.

How old are you?

You must educate your children because that is your duty, but without discussion with POC, because that will be taken wrongly, so they can only be educated from a white perspective.

Why are you acting like there aren’t five million resources about this instantly available by the magic of google? Why do you think you’re entitled to be spoon fed the information you need by a specific black person?

If you can post on mumsnet you can use google, and if you can use google you can educate yourself without asking for emotional labour from black people and then accusing them of being illogical and unhelpful when they don’t want to do it.

I’ll even do you a favour to get you started:

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

www.waterstones.com/book/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race/reni-eddo-lodge9781408870587?awaid=3787&utm_source=redbrain&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=css&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlN32BRCCARIsADZ-J4tRkY-JwUc7PqaiZWusG_uodRMqXtnFLFj0pu7riQB2Jdc4AIjJVRUaAnTrEALw_wcB&awc=3787_1591170727_030f3414455caba9d7618a4d040fe486

www.waterstones.com/book/white-fragility/robin-diangelo9780141990569?awaid=3787&utm_source=redbrain&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=css&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlN32BRCCARIsADZ-J4uT-D0DxGw0FjXHn1P5X10VB-fRC1wpT-T8ZltTmeF_ajdaGL09JjoaAmq4EALw_wcB&awc=3787_1591170751_a01636a4a56ab73499728be5c2479f22

www.whiteallytoolkit.com/

I was thinking about this last night. I've been told off for typing the wrong thing a few times over the past few days. It was justified. I don't want to offend anyone, but I probably am going to put my foot in it. It is helping me learn though. It's just not "gentle" learning (and I would be upset if it had come from someone I thought was a friend). I'm not going to get the hump and stop trying to listen and do better because someone is "hostile" towards me.

Agree with @Sussed.

Isn't the whole point to be able to talk about race rather than being shot down in flames for asking and trying to educate oneself.

If she's your friend then she overreacted.

There is an issue with getting people to do their own research online in that there are so many unreliable, biased and outright harmful sources of information around.
It’s hard to find accurate, independent information on many topics, let alone one as complex as this. Asking for guidance, even as clumsily and virtue-signaling as the OP is a fairly normal response.

@zscaler "I'm" (personally) not acting like anything, actually. I was trying to represent a generalised voice of the difficulty here, for the OP and others, as I see it. In actual fact, I'm an ethnic minority group myself - I still find it shocking how many assumptions are being jumped to about people's context and identities in these threads- and have read plenty of these type of articles, but however much reading I do, I still don't think it clears up the conflict going on about engagement patterns.

At the moment, there's a huge amount of anger around- which is perfectly understandable. But that anger seems to be directed at ALL white people, in a bit of an untargeted manner. There are strange signals at the moment: both you should be doing more, engage, speak out, scream and shout for us. And at the same time, keep the hell away, don't touch me I feel emotionally tired and stressed, you can't ever understand so don't try, do it yourself but don't expect to ever get it right.

The anger is justified. Either set of messages could potentially be justified. Just both together are simply contradictory and can't result in anything for anyone but more frustration and conflict, surely?

you don't need to point out their race for that

Don't be ridiculous. Of course OP had to mention race, it was completely relevant to the thread. I'd bet my life it would have been the first question asked by posters if she hadn't.

@FlatCheese

Agree. This isn’t pleasant what I’m feeling right now. It’s very hard to know that people who you consider friends and relatives are angry at you just because of your skin colour and whatever I say is going to be wrong because it’s me saying it,

Trying to realise that Their anger is totally justified and not aimed at me personally - but at the race I am part of, and that TV at anger needs to be expressed and then hopefully we can reconnect afterwards and see what we can do together to make our small bit of the world less racist

I saw nothing provocative in the OP at all. I saw someone upset that she'd caused offence and made her friend so angry.

I woke this morning to a FB post from a friend (and yes, it's pertinent to say that she's black) with four lists on it for her white friends who want to understand more. Things to read, things to watch, people to follow, and places to donate.

And obviously I instantly thought of this thread, and how everyone thinks that black people shouldn't have to do that. Of course, they don't have to, but my friend having done so might well make a big difference.

I guess I’m trying to say I have moved on a bit from where I was yesterday (and yes I realise I’m talking about me when I fact this shouldn’t be about me) and I am bringing to see that as a white women I just can’t understand how my black (and to some extent Asian) friends and family feel. I cannot comprehend their lived experience.

I will continue to ask and try and support and I probably will fuck it up and piss off people. I only hope that they can choose to forgive me and see me as ignorant rather than evil - and that yes I am therefore asking them to be the bigger person and that’s also not ok, but if they want to I would be great full

At the moment, there's a huge amount of anger around- which is perfectly understandable. But that anger seems to be directed at ALL white people, in a bit of an untargeted manner. There are strange signals at the moment: both you should be doing more, engage, speak out, scream and shout for us. And at the same time, keep the hell away, don't touch me I feel emotionally tired and stressed, you can't ever understand so don't try, do it yourself but don't expect to ever get it right.

From what I can understand this is what the black community has been feeling and has been subjected to for some time (forever).
Untargetted anger from the actions of a few, feeling like there's no right way to behave.
Perhaps this should give some pause to us, white, and understand how it feels.

@Lweji @Nonotthatdr Taking time for pause is one thing, to realise a sense of "oh, so this is how it must feel". But what I'm reading here is a) That white people should count themselves lucky going forward not to be seen as evil by ethnic minorities, just ignorant and should hope for forgiveness for their Original Sin of skin colour by birth b) that as black people have felt this anger and injustice for so long, now it is time for white people to experience it.

Ok...so, for example, following the mass persecution of the Jews in the Holocaust...is the answer for the future to now apply exactly the same treatment to white Aryan germans and gas them all? I realise this is an extreme example. I realise it could be argued that many modern germans HAVE been made to feel evil for the sins of their forefathers. It just feels something is amiss in the solutions here...

An eye for an eye surely isn't the right approach? IS it ignorant to try and advocate mutual engagement and understanding?

@Sussed

I don't share your opinion and don't feel attacked or hated.
Certainly don't read the thread in the same way.

IS it ignorant to try and advocate mutual engagement and understanding?

It may be. If it is demanded of, in this case, the black community.
It can be if we assume we have to be given time for our questions if we haven't been paying attention the rest of the time.

As per the example in this thread, some people will post resources. I'm going to guess that is because they have seen ignorant posts from friends, or because they've been asked and would rather not explain personally to all the friends who are asking. It's one way of coping. But they're basically saying listen to what I'm saying. And that is all that we are asked, to listen. The voices are out there. Our friends are speaking. Listen.

And if sometimes we feel it's unfair, listen again and pay attention. Why is it unfair? And have we been guilty of the same unfairness?
Perhaps we can have mutual engagement and understanding when we are capable of it ourselves. Not token, but actual.
When we are capable of asking why is it that people don't feel they are not responsible for educating us, instead of telling them that it's just a harmless question.

Basically, as long as there's us and them, and we don't see it as our problems as well, IMO.