It's Nice To Chill Alone Or With Folks Who Look Like Me

According to some back-of-the-envelope calculations, the average person meets around 80,000 people in their lifetime. Or roughly 0.00102% of the world population. And will use that tragically limited sample to generalise about all human behaviour.

And it gets worse.

If they happen to be some flavour of bigoted, their feelings about that group of people will be based almost entirely on an even tinier fraction of the whole (bigots are highly unlikely to have met many people from their out-group of choice).

In my article, Is It OK To Be Racist?, I criticised Scott Adams for judging the entirety of black America based on the survey responses of just 34 black Americans. But I also criticised, amongst others, Elie Mystal, whose 2021 article, I Am Not Ready to Reenter White Society, took a similarly short-sighted view of white people.

I pointed out that this kind of race-essentialist, segregationist talk is wrong, whoever it’s coming from. Melody thought there might sometimes be a place for it.

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Melody:

Sure it's ok to be white...just like it's ok to black, Asian, gay, Indigenous...whatever. I'm a black woman raised in the 70s. During my childhood I was bombarded with whiteness hardly ever seeing positive depictions of people who looked like me.... so yeah its also ok to have safe spaces where I can be myself and not have to worry about white people and how I'm seen (or not seen) by them.

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Steve QJ:

“its also ok to have safe spaces where I can be myself and not have to worry about white people and how I'm seen (or not seen) by them.”

I say this with love, but if you're worried about what white people think or how you're seen by them, the problem might be yours and not theirs.

Your worth is not based on how other people, of any colour see you. And certainly not on how you imagine or fear that they see you.

Yes, there used to be very few depictions of people of colour. Certainly positive depictions. It's hugely important that that's changed. But black people have grown up for centuries with full awareness of their value and worth, even without those depictions.

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“Yes, there used to be very few depictions of people of colour. Certainly positive depictions. It's hugely important that that's changed.”

Because there’s been so much stupidity around “diversity” lately, some people assume that any efforts in that direction are stupid or for “snowflakes.” But it’s important for young people to see positive and varied representations of themselves as they grow. 

And it’s also important for them to see positive and tried representations of other groups. So they don’t end up with simplistic or stereotyped views of those groups as inherently good or bad. Diversity, when done properly, helps everybody. When done badly, it hurts everybody.

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Melody:

You misunderstood what I said.... in a nutshell. Sometimes I get tired of "whiteness" EVERYWHERE. I love who I am and I'm very secure in my blackness. No we haven't "grown up for centuries with full awareness of their value and worth". There is a lot of self-hate in the black community. I'm not going to detail examples as its not necessarily in this context.

We unfortunately bear rhe burden of stereotypes and negative tropes pushed in us by whites since we were forcefully brought here. So yeah...it's nice to chill alone or with folks who look like me. Believe me....I don't sit around wondering what white folks think of me....

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Steve QJ:

“No we haven't "grown up for centuries with full awareness of their value and worth". There is a lot of self-hate in the black community.”

Yeah, I'm well aware of this. And it comes in all kinds of forms. That's why I thought what you were saying was coming from this place too. What I meant to say, maybe a little unclearly, was that there have always been black people, no matter what society tried to tell them, who were fully aware of their value and worth.

You live in a white majority country. So sure, you're going to see white people everywhere. I guess my point, in pretty much every article I write actually, is that this difference in skin tone isn't as significant as some people, black and white, make it out to be.

Being tired of seeing white people around me makes no more sense to me than being tired of seeing Asian people around me or Hispanic people around me or short people around me. They're just people. Who they are is so much more important than what they look like.

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As I’ve mentioned here once or twice, my favourite place in all the world is Japan. A country where the average person most definitely doesn’t look like me. And more than that, as a Westerner, where they do sometimes make assumptions about me.

Yet I’ve never once felt uncomfortable there (or anywhere else) because of how I look.

As I said to Melody, a “safe space” based on appearance makes no more sense to me than a safe space based on height or age or favourite pizza topping. And while there are obviously people out there who judge me harshly based on how I look, the point is (and I can’t stress this enough), I don’t care about those people’s opinions at all.

Who we are will always be more important than how we look. It’s up to us to bear that in mind. Because if we’re only ever going to meet 0.00102% of the world’s population, I’m not going to limit myself to people whose skin is a particular shade.