Dear All,
I am sorry, this is not about jollof or rice and peas, but I am trying to get away from prying eyes. Will it work? Let us see.
I am interested in black women's thoughts on this one. It's about having friendships and our relationships with white women.
10 years ago I had a dinner party. Ten women attended, 5 were black, 5 were white. Had a riotous time. Was great. That was probably the make up of my friendship group back then. Not hugely diverse, true. Anyway, fast forward around 10 years, just before Covid lockdowns I had another dinner party and every woman around the table was black, so even worse in the diversity stakes.
Now, ok, I DO have white friends, they just mostly live in other countries. It gave me reason for pause. I think some of those are still active friendships at least partly because they live elsewhere and I don't see them that much. I'll explain. Over the years my friendships with white women have fizzled out because something has happened that I found insurmountable and often it was something cultural. This could be my racism, you know, putting a behaviour in cultural terms, but I have noticed a very British / Western European individualistic way of relating to people that I find off-putting. Say for example I'd have a problem and chat to them about it and their advice would be 'fuck your mum, tell her to do it herself'. Or something. This sounds so small, but the more I moved towards having a family of my own, pressures at work etc, I just noticed that I couldn't really relate to them, I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I don't know, a distance just grew. And some of it I found offensive, honestly, especially comment on my family. My black friends never ever did this stuff.
Some friendships faded because race became significant. I'll give an example. I was talking about my holiday to Cuba with a white friend whom I considered one of my very best friends. She kept saying her experience of It when she went was that it was awful because of the lack of political freedom. My preference is also for democratic process, however I commented that I found it refreshing to be in a country where I could talk to a black man I had just met, and have him tell me he was a maths teacher, or a doctor, or a scientist etc and that freedom from race-based oppression felt good to me. It wasn't an argument, we just disagreed, but she cried anyway (....) Then I felt bad for having an opinion. Anyway, this kind of not seeing eye to eye took its toll. And I got tired of having to point out the micro aggressions or to just take them on the chin.
And then there were little bits here and there that were just suspect to me. And these little things were not popping up with my black friends, so over a decade I have found my friendship group shift. I'd say I have one white friend in the UK who is a good friend. I have other white friends, but we are 'meet up for coffee once a year and chat on a WhatsApp group' friends, not good personal friends necessarily. At that last dinner party, I also noticed that I didn't invite one or two of my white friends because I felt it would change the vibe. This is something I did not do a decade previously.
So, separate to this, but perhaps related. I was chatting to the good white friend I have on the phone recently and I told her that since MeToo I have noticed that I have had more run ins with white women. I was shouted at in the street recently at my child's nursery just the other day. My neighbour next door knocked down my garden wall and basically said 'so?' Other bits, too, epiloguing would be in bad taste. I remarked to that white friend that maybe since the main oppressors of white women have had a chuck bitten out of them, white women have become more emboldened and black women / people are negatively impacted by it. She chimed in with some examples of her own.
Then, honestly, my experience of white women on these threads has not been great.
Now this could all be BS. I could be viewing this out of my own prejudiced lens. I don't know, but what I feel is that my relationships with white women are generally going south.
Black women, what are your thoughts?
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Black Mumsnetters
Jollof or rice and peas?
Sugarintheplum · 01/02/2021 09:05
I think it's the cultural differences which can widen the gap, or potentially bring it closer together.
For example, my white friend is from a culture that places great importance on family, as do mine, so we are very similar in that respect, both having large families who spend time together inter-generationally for enjoyment.
This same white friend when we were in our teens would scream and swear at her parents, again, this is something I wouldn't even dream of doing!
However, being white she benefits from generational wealth, which while not impossible, was far less likely in Black families of past times, due to colonisation and our history.
My parents both worked for the NHS, and luckily came to England at a time when houses in London were reasonably affordable, so they have one, together with small pensions. However, I also subsidise them monthly with an amount MN would deem a decent wage to enable them to travel and do whatever they like with, because me getting to being a higher earner would not have been possible without them, and I want them to feel comfortable in older life. I would NEVER discuss that with my white friend, as I know she wouldn't understand. I do discuss this with my Black friends, and without exception they all help their parents (no-one discusses amounts), replicating what ours did in "sending money back home" when they first arrived.
I remember at one of my old workplaces, a white female colleague who was over 40 and single, talking about how when her parents visit they do a food shop for her. At the time, this woman would have been earning £70k, so I was 
Having worked since the age of 16, and moving out finally at 25 (I paid rent when I came back from uni), I would never expect my parents to pay anything for me.
OP, don’t have much to add as I’ve only ever had superficial friendships with white women. This was punctuated a few years ago when a group of us, all black women from uni, met up on holiday after many years and it was joyful the belly laughter we shared, finishing each other’s sentences, being totally at ease together.
Dc said they had never seen me so happy around friends.
That’s not to say you can’t have deep and lasting friendships with white women but I’ve never experienced it in the way I describe above and I suppose it’s easier to walk away from superficial friendships.
@SkedaddIe
I’m a foodie and so based on your opinion I’m for the first time going to try jollof rice although I make a wicked rice and peas 
.
What’s you favourite chicken recipe to go with it?
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