But I have a black friend!

I have a Black friend.

I know, I know, we look like twins.

Does that help? Does that mean I now get to talk about race all the time? Does having a Black friend, a Puerto Rican husband and light brown kids make me incapable of racism? Nope.

But I talked to that Black friend (Hi Rayna!). And she asked me why I didn’t write about our friendship here. She asked me why I didn’t speak up more. I told her that no one wants to hear a white woman’s perspective on race and that I should be quiet on race, allowing for other voices of color to be heard. I told her that I had nothing unique to say.

And she told me to stop being afraid.

You see that’s what a good friend does. Sees through your cover of playing small and tells you not to be afraid. She also told me that my not writing and speaking up was hurting her. But I was afraid you all (I can’t authentically say “ya’ll”. I’m from Connecticut for goodness sake!). I’ve been afraid of not saying the perfect thing. Even in my own home I’ve been hesitant because I felt like Mario had SO MUCH to say about his experience during this time. What I failed to see was that me being quiet and “thoughtful” also meant I was safe. I wasn’t at risk to isolate friends or family if I just completely avoided any subject around race, social justice, the election or flies in the hair (come on, that was funny!). But that is not how I was raised. My parents didn’t just write in journals about how they felt. They worked at jobs that made it clear. They volunteered their weekends to build houses and even a farmer’s market in my hometown when most of the town just ignored or put up with the public housing projects the farmer’s market would be located in. They weren’t silent. Dad would say “don’t be helpless” which I’m also taking here to mean “say something”. (He also would say “don’t be a donkey” though, which I’m pretty sure is not politically correct.)

Rayna’s response to me saying that my son wanted a “giant Twix bar” and me saying that surely this didn’t exist. Sorry Dad, I was being helpless!

Part of the reason why I was afraid was that social media seems to be everyone’s favorite place to start a conflict and I HATE conflict. I would rather tell a giant audience about pelvic health after children rather than have a conflict. And the last time I wrote about race there was conflict. Despite so many of you reaching out to say that our story of not fitting in as a family due to race sounded like your family, there were others that didn’t get it. Others that said that no one hurt Mario, so why should we be uncomfortable in a place that just happens to not be racially diverse? But this is what trauma does. It sends you a message that forever changes the way you look at the world. Mario’s world is forever shaped by the negative experiences he has had with white people treating him, his family, the people he loves the most as “other” or “less than”. Rayna’s world is forever different for how the world sees and talks about young Black men, as she is raising four of them. And these aren’t one time events that happened and they cope with. Mini and big examples of racism happen every day that add to their collections.

Here’s a really small example that has nothing to do with racism but helps me understand the concept of what trauma does. Dad’s time in the ICU forever changed me. And I don’t always get to decide when that trauma comes back to my memory. Sometimes it’s just the smell of the hand sanitizer that was used there and I’m right back- flooded with the emotions and desperation that I felt watching my Dad in the ICU. He’s not back in the ICU. No one is actually hurting me in that moment, and it doesn’t make sense to do that, but the body remembers (You can listen to a book about how the body remembers here).

I’m so thankful for the moments of peace in nature that I’ve found in the last few months, that have given me the space to think about these things.

And after a while, when you have had so many of these trauma memories, you can’t even dare to hope for things to be better, because you have been let down so many times that you can’t even hope. This happens to a lot of us. When we get sick frequently, it’s hard to trust the healthy days. When our friends and family drink too much, it’s hard to trust that they will be sober when we need them to. When your parent forgets who you are, you don’t hope they will the next time you see them! Because what if you hope for that and they don’t and you are crushed. Again.

So we all start to protect ourselves. I stop hoping Mom will know me. Rayna stopped hoping that white people could truly be her friend, would be kind to her sons, would treat her with respect and dignity and not be surprised to see someone Black be amazing. She has lost hope. She hasn’t lost hope in herself, or in her Black community. She lost hope in MY community, my WHITE community. And my silence on this in any space, including here, wasn’t helping.

So here is something for those of you that don’t have Black and brown friends. People are hurting. Because words matter. My friend Rayna and my husband are tired of feeling like no one will stand up for them. They are tired of leading marches, or posting about race hoping to get likes because likes might mean that a white person will think twice before assuming that a Black or brown person is less than.

Rayna would say that I’m her “girlfriend” but I’m white and don’t say that so I would say she is my close friend. We have a kinship that surprised both of us. Our ability to be honest, silly and blunt with each other comes from a real respect. Ten years ago we both challenged each other to write down what we really wanted from our lives. Hers was to write a book, mine was to open a bakery. We both did that. You can find her book here. You can find my bakery no where because it went out of business. Last week she challenged me to write. This week I’m challenging you to see the spaces where you are silent and fill them with kindness, true acceptance and action. By the way, Rayna can also teach you how to take selfies. She told me to look less “mad at everyone” in mine. Examples below. :)