#its just…. they’re those kinds of white ppl. not actively or intentionally racist or anything. but like… they don’t have no friends of colo

[velvetstreets]

personal under the cut; just ranting into the abyss as a black woman

Existing as a black person/black woman in your white family is so fuckin exhausting and isolating when your white family isn’t actively/consciously aware of how you have to move in the world as a black person/woman and how EVEN IN FAMILY, you are actively having to try and fit in to THEIR space.

I always have to switch language for them, I always have to conduct myself in a way that isn’t authentically me, I always have to make them be comfortable with ME by fitting into THEIR world.

Never once are they trying to understand me, never once are they trying to coordinate a space that is comfortable for ME in terms of whiteness & cultural differences. I am always forced to attempt to fit into their culture, their standards, their way of speaking, their WHITENESS.

And how I talk/dress/act/physically look like is always different and always going to BE different from how they talk/dress/act/physically look. I will always stand out like a sore thumb whether I try to or not (especially when im NOT trying to), and even though they won’t pointedly say anything, I can FEEL it. I can feel it in the way they observe me, in the way I struggle trying to adapt to their whiteness and the community of whiteness they bring/I have to exist in and interact with.

And it’s like… listen im not asking them to cook jollof rice or injera for Christmas or whatever. But they so clearly do not interact with non-white culture/people/worldly experiences unless it’s from a lens of white observance if that makes sense? Like the way they interact is very “man observing zoo animal” and not really having to acknowledge/understand that the world (western societies in particular) are extremely ostracizing and isolating because you don’t allow space for non-white experiences and realities to exist. And that YES, even if they are not ‘racist’, that they still ACTIVELY partake in this. We are always operating by your systems and your rules and your level and idea of comfort.