Craziest Sh*t A White Girl Has Ever Said To You?
BlogHer 12 was this weekend and, as always, I was happy to be around a bunch of women who take blogging seriously and meet the many awesome people who attend. Plus, I love that tons of black women attend this event as I always discover wonderful new blogs and powerful voices.
But, of course, one cannot go a whole conference without some ratchet mess going down.
Luvvie of Awesomely Luvvie relates a real life “Sh*t White Girls Say” moment:
I was standing in a circle with Chescaleigh, Nicole Blades and Tina Shoulders… [t]hen a woman joins us and goes “carry on with your conversation.” She happened to be white… She was holding a glass of wine and semi-slurring when she spoke… Then foolery happens.
“Oh my gosh I just love Black women. I LOVE you all. You’re all just so fun and sooo… spicy.”
…I look at the rest of the ladies to gauge their reactions and to see if they were in their heads freaking out too. And they were. I looked at Chesca and her face was a literal O_______O. And she pulled out her iPhone and started typing with vigor. I knew she was headed to Twitter to share the comment. And Nicole was looking like O_o while Tina was just like “Ummm…” Then it continued.
“And I love you natural hair. It’s just… yesss. I just love Black women. In fact, I’m actually a Black woman myself. I just left my spray tan at home.”
… It was like “Punk’d” except without Ashton. Or the “I’m just kidding” part.
It gets worse from there and the entry and comments are worth reading, so click over.
I think I saw part of this conversation go down but heard enough of what the Cooking Lady said to swiftly move on because: no. Thankfully, I didn’t encounter much stuff like that during the weekend. Most of the women were wonderful.
But Luvvie’s post got me wondering about your best “Sh*t White Girls Said To Me” stories. What’s the funniest (in restrospect), the most O____O inducing, the weirdest?
Oh holy hell. On behalf of white girls who aren’t insane, I’m sorry that happened.
haha thanks. She’s one of my best friends so I know she didn’t mean it in a hurtful way. She’s just ignorant.
One day in school, it was near the end of the year and we had free time during class so my friend and I started to socialize. I am Hispanic and my friend is white. We’re both good friends and we like to poke fun at our races, because she’s so WHITE but I love her to death. There was a dictionary left on a desk and I said jokingly “How about you put your white self to work and go put it away” I thought about saying “cracker” but I realized even with a good friend that it may be going too far. She responded with, jokingly, “how about you do it yourself, n*****.” I was stunned but because I know her personally my instinct was to laugh hysterically. In retrospect it frightens me that she uses such a strong word even though it was only directed at me in a fun environment. She may say that to the wrong person and really get herself hurt. I can take a joke and I try not to take things personally but it’s sad that some people don’t know how strong and hurtful a word can be. (Sorry for such a long comment but I wanted to share me little tale.)
Yeah – I have had similar experiences – I was facilitating a Australian national women’s conference and has chairing the WOC caucus on the first day when a woman walked in. I let her know that this was the woman of colour caucus and she said “Oh, I am not a woman of colour, but I wish I was” I asked why she wished she was a woman of colour. She replied “because all black women can sing”. Yep. Racism is alive.
When I was a freshman in high school, I got my hair braided ala Janet Jackson in “Poetic Justice”. The first day I walked down the hall wearing it, a white girl in my band class who had been giving me grief all year says, “OH MY GOD! LOOK! SHE HAS ***FAKE HAIR***!” Thankfully, the high school I went to was pretty diverse. Instead of trying to start some ish, she just made herself look like a dumbass around all the other Black girls with extensions in their hair.
I was over at a white friend’s house, practicing for an upcoming gig. (I’m south asian btw)
Her mother came up to me as I was leaving and asked if I’d ever taken singing lessons. I replied in the negative and her response was “Oh…well your people are always so good at music.” I didn’t want to engage, but her thoroughly embarassed daughter had no trouble prodding. When asked what kind of ‘people’ she meant, her mom replied “You know, black people.”
Sigh.
“It’s so wonderful to see a child that really loves his nanny.”
The child in question was my blond, blue-eyed biological son.
Ha! That happened to me in 1995. I was living in brooklyn with my newborn son and going to Prospect Park for walks. None of the white Moms wanted to talk to me because they thought I was my son’s nanny and none of the nanny’s wanted to talk to me once they found out I wasn’t a nanny. Messed up.
I feel you, Lisa! My story is from 2010, so yeah, not a whole lot of change in those 15 years. :(
Most WTF white girl comment… there are SO MANY. THis one was at a “discussion group” about racism at a feminist conference. White girl who worked as a PR exec for a major company explained she was from South Africa and also had freckles, so she had always felt she was “half black”. O_o
During a panel discussion at the 2007 Blogher conference in Chicago, a young white woman stood up during the Q&A portion and said that this was her first Blogher conference, and she was finding it difficult to be around all these ‘black people’ at the conference. She said that she was really afraid and was asking for some advice as to how to ‘get along’ with others there. And yes, there were quite a number of POC’s in the room.
I was absolutely shocked. And even more shocked when the moderator, who didn’t miss a beat, calmly gave her this PC-bullshit response that the city can be intimidating, yet she should try and spark up some conversations with other bloggers, etc.. I looked around the packed room, and while some people looked completely dumfounded, there was more ‘ooh, ooh,’ sympathy for the woman than WTF-ness.
I felt that in order to soothe Missy Anne’s tears, the POC’s were fed to the lions. I think that the moderator could have offered to speak to her after the session. I just couldn’t believe the response, but really couldn’t believe that the woman ( whom to be fair, was fucking clueless) felt that it was appropriate to stand up in front of hundreds of strangers and admit that. Needless to say, I felt differently about my fellow Bloghers and the whole conference after that.
White women have race privilege which allows them to get drunk, approach strangers and make racist comments. Men of color have gender privilege. WOC get oppression heaped on them from all sides. “Clueless” white women need to be called out on their privilege. A white person dropping the N-word needs to understand the powerful institutional genocidal hatred inherent in that word and that unless she really does believe that POC are something other than human, she really shouldn’t use the word. A white woman claiming to feel uncomfortable around POC in a public forum should told directly that her racist comments are not welcome and that she should really get a fucking clue before she sets foot outdoors again.
This incident happened at an. after party celebrating President Clinton’s 2nd inauguration in 1995 in a nigh club in my hometown, Washington, DC. For folks who are not familiar with the city, DC was brimming with well-educated cosmopolitan, international and politically savvy African-Americans. So what occurred in the ladies room that night was a bit of a shock to me as well as the sisters who happened to be in the stalls what Ashleigh, from Texas says as I am washing my hands:
“Excuse me, you’re so pretty your skin is so fair…are you part white?
It was at this point that the women in the stalls flung the doors open in unison and I swear I had a split-second flash back to the choreography in the “Wannabes v. Jigaboos” scene in Spike Lee’s School Daze!
As soon as the flash back ended, I looked myself in the mirror and asked myself if I wanted to take the high road or the low road in answering her question. In the spirit of full disclosure, at the time I was a bit militant politically and was sporting a TWA before the term was even coined. But clearly, Ashleigh was clearly a victim of her own ignorance so I decided to take the high road.
After taking a deep breath and under the watchful eyes of the women at the stalls who seemed to be waiting for me to give Ashleigh a verbal beat down, I simply said: “Given the history of slavery in in this country I am probably a mixture of African, white and possibly Native American.”
Ashleigh responded: “Slavery wasn’t my fault. I don’t like to talks about that.”
So I responded: “ I know it wasn’t your fault. But it is a part of the history of this country and this is my response.
Ashleigh, who was clearly out of her element and aggressively gigging herself into a deeper hole said: “I’m from a small town in Texas and all the pretty black women I’ve seen, like Halle Berry, are mixed. She then left the room.
The sisters who had been watching the whole exchange approached the sinks had a number of reactions to share including. Unfortunately, I cannot recall exactly what they said as I was still reeling from the abject ignorance I had just witnessed, But I do recall that one commended me for my restraint and others said that they would have gone up one side of her and don the other.
Oddly, I had a couple of other encounters with Ashleigh that night that were equally ignorant but too convoluted to share in this post.
White girl I work with: “for some reason I just always want to call you Kizzy.”
Me: O__o
The first time happened when I was still in elementary school as an eight year old. A teacher walks up and takes my hair in her hand and asks “is this your real hair” my reply is a quick yes to which they immediately respond that it is to good to be my real hair before she walks off to her class and I’m left there wondering what kind of person asks that.
another time in my preteens alot of kids and teachers alike would come up to me while I was reading and say “I didn’t know people like you read” 0_o I was always too shocked to say anything.
A preety recent one was when I was pushing a cart through a store with a blonde, blue-eyed baby in the basket and some random woman walks up looks at me then him before asking a one year old,”honey do you need any help”
His response was to immediately grab me and shout “Mamma” which shocked the woman long enough for us to get away.
When I was in college (late 80’s) I was at one of my usual weekly Buddhist gatherings. We were all socializing a little bit at the end before heading our various ways, and one of our young women’s youth group leaders (white woman from somewhere in the midwest) turns to me and puts out her hand to gently tug on one of my braids. (I had about 4 inch growth of natural afro fade braided in individual plaits laying down on the top and part of the sides of my scalp) And as she did so she said and I kid you not:
“Oh now don’t you just look like a cute little pixaninny!” (that’s no typo she pronounced it with a pix) I don’t remember if I said anything in reply – I do remember that I was just shocked down to my socks. (and was probably therefore rendered speechless).
It wasn’t said directly TO me, but when i was in college there was this conversation around me:
Teacher: “…and we feel we have to get tan to make our skin darker.”
White girl: “No…but black people do it too, they bleach their skin…with cream” *smiles and pretends to rub bleach cream on her face*
Other white girl: *Gives her funny look like, “What are you talking about, no they don’t….?”
As if black people are born charcoal black but turn all different shades as a result of skin bleach.
I almost had a stroke that day.
I am so grateful for the safe space this blog offers to share these stories: Praise the Lord! There are few online support groups that offer spaces like these to de-stress and it’s not just me that need to do so- anyway onto my story about “Craziest Sh*t A White Girl Has Ever Said To You?”
Ahh it happened today: I reached out to a white female that I thought was an acquaintance lol – I told her that I felt like we started out on the wrong foot (she was rude in the past and I got defensive but I wanted to straighten things out- I’m working on bettering myself) so I emailed her and basically said “let’s turn a new page” her response “I feel uncomfortable with how intense each of our interactions becomes so I’d rather not expand our social interactions outside of when we see each other” — this is after we spoke twice (2 times) before, where she called me obsessive and pretty much insulted me. Intense meaning?? Don’t ask me- because when I asked her to explain she makes excuses and says I’m obsessing over it smh… I don’t like being portrayed as a troublemaker when I’m trying to make peace. Okay, here I vent: I was minding my business when she first reached out to me and went out of her way to give me her business card, and long story short, after she discovered i was in a relationship so-called friendship fizzled- i still was a friend, I had no hard feelings but it seemed like she was looking for any excuse to cut me off after the discovery, hence the accusations against me about ” obsessing over things” or the so-called “intensity” of our interactions –she tried to make me out to be a predator (so called intense interactions), and still trying to do so…i am not trying to push anything, i want to move on with my life as of today, but i have found that i have few relationships with white females that are authentic or have some depth to it, i find with sisters my friendships go deep…any feedback on this one appreciated highly!