White women, please be honest about this

[Lightsmother]

I’m a South Asian woman and genuinely feel white women are unable to fully connect with me in the same way they are with other white women. I don’t feel a genuine solidarity or sisterhood coming from them, regardless of how hard I try or attempt to fit in with their norms.

When you meet a non-white woman, do you really see through her race?

From school to university and now parenthood, it’s a difficult experience and I am constantly considering how each meeting and interaction would go if I were white.

I find the 'I don't see colour brigade ' really weird. Do you not notice colour when choosing how to decorate or get dressed?

You should see colour and recognise that people are different and come from different experiences. But. That should inform how you approach certain subjects and conversations. It should not however mean you treat people negatively because of their differences.

Well they might not loudly proclaim it, but you’ve only got to look at the N London luvvie class, for instance, to see it very much in action... no?

This is an anonymous website, why wouldn’t someone of that demographic come on and say what they really believe?

And just to weigh in - I see where OP is coming from. I don't have any close white women friends. The white women I meet are at work and our 'friendship' has been one based around work and have never survived once we've each gone on to different jobs.

On a personal note, I don't drink and don't enjoy socialising outside work. The friends I have, I've had for over 10 years and met them through friends of other friends. I find British work culture revolves around a drink after work or drinking generally so I'm unlikely to form friendships with people on that basis.

I always think how does anyone know what their own heritage might be. I have Irish heritage, probably some Jewish ( based on surnames), probably Scandinavian, goodness knows what else. I really don't think people take account of racial heritage when forming friendships.

If you are a polite and proper lady, OP, then some friends might refrain from telling you embarrassing details about their past sex life or getting drunk and showing themselves up. Being very open is a way of engendering a sort of spurious closeness and 'trust', but to value a person and their character, even when conversations take in more generalities, that is worth something. Friendships can take many different forms and be true

I struggle with women generally, I don't think I put up any more barriers with one race or another. I don't trust any female.

I'm not assuming that you are polite and proper, OP, I'm just giving an example.

Apologies if somebody else has said this, but it sounds as though you may be relatively young, in your twenties or early thirties: you mention school, uni, parenthood. You've got so much life ahead, and friendships which last for decades become solid, even if no deep confiding has gone on. You might find some of the bonds you have now mature into something you consider to be really valuable and wonderful.

I always think how does anyone know what their own heritage might be. I have Irish heritage, probably some Jewish ( based on surnames), probably Scandinavian, goodness knows what else. I really don't think people take account of racial heritage when forming friendships.

And you don't think that having a mixture of white heritages is an entirely different affair to being black or mixed race, and having people ask you where you're 'really from' on a regular basis, or, as on this thread, being afraid to befriend you because they're nervous about making some kind of racial faux pas?

Sorry I haven't read the whole thread, but where in the Uk do you live? I think it makes a difference.
I'm white but not originally from the Uk. I have ONE genuine friend from England, after 3 years of living there. I just couldn't connect with white English women - they would be nice enough to me but it's like they didn't see me as friend material.
I now live in Scotland and have loads of female friends. People here seem to like me a lot more in general, even though I've not done anything differently.
I can't comment on what it's like as a black person but personally colour wouldn't affect whether I'm friends with someone or not.

@Xenia

I am not special. I am not important. My only point really was that class/educational similarities and being a working parent is more important to me and I could not care less what colour someone is.

The trouble is that you are making assumptions about people that aren't borne out in reality - and if you stopped and actually spoke to some support staff rather than at them , you could find out that they went to University, love classical music, sing in a choir, worked as a tutor or teacher or have a love for fashion as much as yours.

One of my old bosses knew I'd taken the same course as he had once - he brought it up in front of somebody else 'of his level', but made the mistake of asking me what my results were after he'd asked what I thought of a particular unit. I answered honestly and innocently (95%), only to have his face drop and say 'Oh'.

His peer, sensing blood in the water, asked 'so what did you get, then?'. '75%'. I chipped in with a good natured 'Well, you do have considerably more responsibility on a daily basis than I did at the time, so I'm sure that a C is a perfectly adequate grade for the circumstances' and went off to get on with my menial support role (as he blushed furiously and his peer's attempts at suppressing laughter failed miserably).

Another ex boss announced that an interview candidate was 'so rubbish that even' I'd have been better at it than they were. I have a degree in the subject and taught it to others for a living before a regular, reliable income became more important (in other words, I was sick of wealthier people not paying their invoices).

Try not to be one of those people. They're generally thought to be complete idiots.

@Hullo - I read what you posted as suggesting that Xenia were making stuff up. Sorry if I inferred that wrongly from what you seemed to be implying. I just thought I'd say she isn't. Through poster being around a long time, you sometimes do pick up a little bit about posters, when they contribute to various threads, that's all. No-one is more important, or special, no. Verified ? - Potentially. I realise any of us could make stuff up at any point, but I can't see why you would, over many years, as posters sometimes do 'for a laugh' when they just join to start posting odd things.

@lboogy As has already been clarified, people saying "I don't see colour" are not saying the couldn't describe a person if called upon to do so, but are saying "colour isn't something that would make me decide if I want to chat to someone or not" in the same way that, if called to describe someone, I might say they were tall or short, but that wouldn't be a deciding factor in whether I was going to chat to someone I didn't know at any sort of gathering. I'd naturally be attracted to someone who smiled at me rather than someone who avoided eye contact. That is what I see when scanning a room of people, not if they have fair hair or dark hair, if they are skinny or large, or what the colour of their skin is. Only all that takes longer to type out than saying they don't see skin colour.

Diverse, how does anyone know you ask. I have tracked my family tree back on all sides to the the 1700s (in one case I just got back to Dublin in the 1840s but I am pretty sure they would have been all Irish before that) so I know exactly and also I have bought all the birth certs for all direct ancestors and all great aunts and uncles - about 40 of those for starters! All very boringly born in the UK or Ireland. Before the 1700s all I can go by is the family names and also the DNA testing which says 98% UK/Scotland and 2% Scandinavia which is likely to be the family on Orkney in the 1700s who probably had some viking ancestors given the history of Orkney.

However all of us come from Africa - there is no doubt about that. I am about 3% Neanderthal DNA but I think even they started in Africa even though they got to Europe well before homo sapiens.

That is the nice thing about it - we are all one people and all from the same origin and all Africans in a sense.

I’m white-British but live in a multicultural area and so have worked with/gone to school with/met many non-white women. I find some cultures have a family feel that white-British cultures don’t have so much. I.e once you’ve formed a friendship you’re embraced and become part of the family and at that point they’re incredibly kind and generous. I’ve definitely got white friends like that too, but I’d say they take longer to reach that stage.

So no, I don’t agree. I really appreciate my friends for their qualities and value them on the same basis.

My brother paid for one of those dna tests and it came back 96% british and Irish, and 4 per cent Swedish. He was so disappointed. I think he thought he'd get a bit surprise and discover he was on 16th chinese. It would have been something to discuss at sunday lunch for sure. I wouldn't bother after his boring result.

@fascinated

You’re awfully defensive nope, just curious. I still don't know what this incomer or returner is though??

@fascinated also tbf my comment about if I was worry of taking to or voiced into that category of "other breed" of women known as thick common sahp, I was metaphorically mixing metaphors, it was Xenia who thinks women who don't work are lesser beings

I'm white and I grew up in a very white middle class area. All my friends were white.

When I went to uni I met a mixed race Nigerian/German (Caucasian, born in UK) girl and we became friends, house shared etc. I didn't think I saw her any differently until she came home with me one weekend and we went out in my hometowns. She got quite upset that she was the only black person in any of the pubs we went in. She'd never experienced that as she grew up in London.

I didn't understand how she felt. I could not put myself in her shoes as nothing like that ever happened to me and it still never has 20 years later. I tried to understand because I couldn't empathise but I knew I never really would. We talked about it for a long time. It was when I started to understand white privilege.

Anyway, years later - in relation to the OP - I now live in a semi-rural area and my best friend of the last ten years or so is a Thai lady whose family run the local Thai restaurant! She is married to a white English guy (and the two now manage the restaurant after her dad retired) but still struggles with English culture.

I'm fascinated by Thai culture now, watch a lot of Thai TV.

[quote SleepingStandingUp]@fascinated also tbf my comment about if I was worry of taking to or voiced into that category of "other breed" of women known as thick common sahp, I was metaphorically mixing metaphors, it was Xenia who thinks women who don't work are lesser beings[/quote]
Well, that’s just daft!

Sorry, I mean the idea of women not working being lesser is just daft. I need to stop rambling on. This thread has really touched a nerve for me, as a 100% British born and bred “white woman” who’s been “othered” so often by other 100% British born and bred white women ...

StuntPond
I take your point, but in the conceptualising of things which has gone on in my mind, it isn't 'entirely' different. As a young child, my mother was told by her English aunts to say 'No I'm English', when asked, on account of her surname, whether she were Irish. It was a long time ago in the 1930s, in Ealing, but it gives me a sense that many of us might have strands of ancestry which have not been accepted by the majority in the area in which the ancestors had been living. A sense also of how facile it would be to make friendship bonds/friendship distinctions based on heritage.

But I come back to the question of how you really know how warmly your acquaintances or friends feel about others. For instance, there is a fair amount of convenience, or having lectures or hobbies in common, directing uni friendships. I value and am touched by kindness from strangers, and warmth and friendliness from people who are not strictly speaking friends, but whom I see often, e.g., when I go into their shops and cafes. It's the kindness rather than the confiding which matters. My neighbours are wonderful to me, but we don't socialise as friends, or tell each other secrets, it's mostly small talk, but I know they care and I value knowing them so much.

There are plenty of people in the west of Scotland who take racial heritage into account when forming friendships!

As the (very old) Glasgow “joke” goes:

What’s your religion?

Jewish.

Yeah, but are you a Catholic Jew, or a Protestant Jew?

END OF “JOKE”

I’m sure the same would go for BAME nowadays.

I have this too OP. I live in a very white area. I have had three jobs now where I cannot seem to break into the cliques. Everyone else gets along, I am friendly and have other friends but not welcomed into the office circle. In London I was fine though.
At my last job I found out one of the guys had been saying things about the colour of my skin behind my back and everyone had been laughing about it but were being ok to my face.

Not great. My dad is white British. I'm born and raised here and don't know anything about my mums side. I was raised completely British same as my white British half siblings and yet treated totally different. Sorry you have this. I also signed my mixed race dc up to a specific class that's designed to help people from all races integrate. The white mothers brought their dc along all bought a coffee and walked well away from any POC without even acknowledging us. I wonder why they bother!
My dh is white and he understands it. I think you have to see it for yourself to believe it.

I'm a BAME Muslim woman who wears hijab and live in a very naice area with very few BAME people. I get on really well with my colleagues but there does seem to be a barrier when it comes to getting closer. Sometimes it's just down to practical considerations - I don't go to pubs for example, so that rules out a lot of socialising that other people do. I prefer not to shake hands or hug people of the opposite sex, so on occasions where I've socialised with my colleagues it's been a bit awkward because everyone will hug/kiss and I can see they're trying to navigate around what I'm comfortable with. I get that for them, it might be uncomfortable to have to think about these things, as it is for me, so it's easier in some ways to keep it at the friendly office banter level. Friendship is about being comfortable and having a safe space - if either party feels they have to watch themselves it just won't work out.

I do find I tend to bond well with people who also are also of immigrant background, regardless of what that background is, because they just 'get' things like being an outsider, being on the receiving end of racism etc. These are formative experiences for me, just as someone upthread mentioned that private schooling may be formative for them. I have also found I get on very well with gay men, who also understand what it's like to navigate difference in wider society.

But ultimately, it is about the person and their heart. I will connect with anyone who I feel is good, and caring, and kind, and I'll do my best to be the same with them.

@fascinated

Sorry, I mean the idea of women not working being lesser is just daft. I need to stop rambling on. This thread has really touched a nerve for me, as a 100% British born and bred “white woman” who’s been “othered” so often by other 100% British born and bred white women ...

😂thanks for clarifying who's daft.

Touched a nerve for me too as someone who has a degree, worked for 17 Inc 12 in a "career", have travelled, done a variety of volunteer work but would be deemed as just a stupid, ignorant SAHP by some as I had to quit work to care for DS.

ANyway, don't let strangers on the internet get to you. Or the idiot in the real world

Oh Xenia you're still mentioning leaving your babies at 2-weeks old. After all these years with you pretending to be so nonchalant about it. Hope the Island is ok.

@popcornlover

I think your post is really offensive OP. To suggest white women don’t want to be friends with South Asian people. I find what you are saying racist.

I never see people’s nationalities when I make friends with them. It’s just a case of getting along well.

If you approach people with all this negativity, where do you hope to go? This is a friendly country OP.

Don't tell someone who is British and has stated so many times, that this is a friendly country. She grew up here FFS.

Your post is insulting and antagonistic.