White Friends….Why don’t you ask me out for lunch?
I can feel the angry clicking of posts all across America. Racism is going to end because my white friends are angry! Anger will help in the moment but in the end, why not ask a person of color for lunch and ask them their story? If you really want to humanize racism, be friends with more types of humans. Look, I’ll go first.
My parents left a third world country at ages 16 and 17. My mother went to college in London and my father joined the military. Around then, there was a program created by America — if you joined the United States Navy, you can become a citizen. America wanted a military base in the Philippines and gave an opportunity to immigrate to America as an extra. Long story short, I’m born in San Diego and now you are reading an article I am writing. I am almost every minority you can think of. I have PTSD from my childhood (if you are ever interested, you can ask me, but none of my white friends ever are), I’m a woman, I’m a first generation Filipina-American in my family, I’m the first college educated and graduated. I am also not married and have no children, which is almost blasphemy in my culture. So, when I say I’m a minority, I’m like the minority’s minority. The one majority I belong to is that I’m straight.
I grew up in a fairly diverse neighborhood with conservative parents, a super liberal college with hardly any women or poc in my class and a career amongst white men as far as the eye can see. So, you can almost say I live in two worlds. The poc world and the white people world. The worst thing about racism is how much of a blind spot it can be if you have never really experienced it. Here’s what I mean: When I first started at Starbucks in college — I was told to mop the bathrooms by this white woman and yelled at me when I didn’t know how to use a mop. I’m like “yo woman, I grew up in a house with carpet.” Or all my college white friends chastising me having never had macaroni and cheese until college. Sorry, I had adobo, rice and pancit. Or being called the ‘best girl director’ in the class (what about best director?) and then being assigned to the equivalent of left field in baseball — schlepping sand bags on film sets. How about the time I had to gently tell my white guy friend that he needs to stop interrupting me because I need to finish my thoughts too. Or the white woman roommate I had, who kept smoking in my room and when I complained to another suite mate about it, went to every single apartment on the entire floor AND to my new roommates three floors below to spread the rumor that I was a crazy woman (yes, I was the only minority woman on the floor) who received a Martin Scorsese scholarship to film school as a diversity admission instead of actually having any talent. The message is clear — no matter how white you act, you still don’t belong.
The worst are liberals because they think, if I’m liberal, how could I ever possibly be racist? When companies talk about how they want diverse of thought, they don’t really mean it if everyone they hire is white. I tell you what diverse thought looks like. It looks like me. Throughout my career, I’ve been able to exploit it and have been heralded by it. I once was at a site in Chicago for a multi-million dollar project and when I made a joke about how they could possibly be successful if they were using an incompatible frame rate. Whoops — apparently, I revealed a hole that had passed 15 white men eyeballs. How about the time 3 engineers and myself were looking at a server and after running this line of code and that line of code, I said “Did you check the subnet?” And oops, I’m right. Or the time I sent an email out and pointed out a discrepancy or an issue that we should squash before it becomes too late? On and on, over and over again, I had become legendary (yes, the term people have told me is legendary. I didn’t pick that) for my emails and for pointing out the simplest solution and to me, it’s like the Matrix — “It’s so obvious. How can you not see it?” And yet, my experience is questioned. When I point a systemic problem out, I’m the problem because nobody else is experiencing it. But, if they dug a little deeper, no other WHITE people are experiencing the same behavior.
I even had a racist friend, although none of my white friends will believe me. And we were close, we were even roommates once. As a good friend, I would gently question his racist tendencies and he would snap back at me. He would boss me around, condescend me, insult me and expect me to drop everything for his beck and call. He would be mad if I didn’t invite him to every single thing I was doing and yell at me in front of our mutual friends about how much more superior he is to me. I would complain to two sets of friends — my friends of color and my white friends. My friends of color — immediately…what a jerk, we thought it was weird that he was bossing you around, (yes, they saw it at book club) what a loser, you’re better off without him. But my white friends. My white friends couldn’t believe it. Every single one of them were questioning my memory of the experiences I had or gave sympathy to the guy. Oh, he’s going through a rough time. Oh, he feels bad about this thing or that. Did you try hard enough? Did you really try to talk to him? Like, really really really? YES people. I really really did.
So white people will say — — well, why didn’t you say anything? You can’t. Here’s a great example. I worked for a reality show that had a producer who pretty much lashed out on anybody ‘different’ — all the gay people, the people of color and the women. It’s was really obvious. People started quitting left and right. I stayed on longer than I should have because I thought I could make a difference. I would stand up to that producer and be like “She was 5 minutes late. That guy and that guy were 10 and 20 minutes late and they didn’t get yelled at in front of everyone.” I had 8 letters of folks who had quit because of their experiences, I had 3 senior editors say they would come with me and talk to the Executive Producer about it. I walked straight into HR with the letters and wept like a mofo. She said they would look into it. They didn’t call a single person. The didn’t do a single thing. So, I went to the EP. Showed him the letters. He said “what if they are all lying?” ALL OF THEM? Then, I quit. Subsequently, he asked if I can wait to quit on Thursday for the live show? Oh, by the way, those (white) editors bailed last minute. If it were 10 white people, even if it was ONE white straight person — something would’ve happened. Why should I go through this emotional and mental labor for white people? Because they really don’t want to know.
Here’s another example — I was at an airport. Two black teenagers were crying and complaining to a white flight attendant about how they needed to be on that flight. I approach the airport woman — who was rolling her eyes and shaking her head. I ask what the problem is. The kids tell me that they need 50 bucks for a change fee to get on this flight and meet their father. Ok. I’ll pay for it. The woman says I can’t pay for it. Why not, you just need the money, right? I give her my credit card and pay for their stupid change fee. The teenagers ask for my name, my address and thank me profusely. I just say, my name is not important, don’t worry about it, just do the same for someone in the future. This is the first time I have ever shared that story because it doesn’t need to be shared, it just needs to be done. If I were a white person, I wouldn’t shut up about it.
So…next tactic. I’m just going to have to lead by example. I swore to myself that if I ever had any power, I would hire the smartest, most diverse team. I go to seminars where I talk to people of color and encourage them to find a job in the television/content business, so there’s more diverse thought and experiences. I went to an HR convention (HR invited me!) to talk about how to find those stellar diverse candidates. I help out my fellow people of color when they need help. I speak up in meetings. Be the first reluctant minority woman in everything I do.
If you’re white…what can YOU do? First, make some people of color friends. It’s not hard. Ask them to lunch. Second, ask them about their life. It’s not always about you. If they share a problem, don’t make it about your problem and your experience. Listen instead of waiting to react. Lastly, stop questioning our experiences. There’s no way you know what it’s like, so stop pretending you know what it’s like when you don’t deal with it all the time or even, part of the time.
If you feel defensive about anything I said here, just stop for a second before you add that defensive, angry comment. Why do you feel so defensive? Interrogate yourself and your bias. Make that first step about thinking outside of your universe and have those uncomfortable talks. We’re waiting for you.
