'Friendship is our only social relationship that is purely voluntary. Someone can just walk away at any time.'
Anna Sale: Hey, it’s Anna. We’re rerunning an episode today about race and friendship. This episode first came out in January 2020, before the murder of George Floyd and the racial justice protests that followed.
Chrishana White: Sarah and I, we’ve been talking about our friendship in terms of race. And I think it really started after I had my bachelorette, and I didn’t invite her. invite to her bachelorette party is also Black. She wasn’t sure if Sarah, her close friend and coworker, would fit in. Listener: There’s not one other person of color at the wedding. I mean, there’s not even a pepper shaker on the table. I’m like, what? James: I just couldn't believe that this kid, who I grew up with, who I felt super close with, really revealed himself.
Antoinette: So I really didn't think about the response I gave her, that was just like,"Let’s just cancel. Thanks for letting me know.
Antoinette: It's funny you say that. I reached out to her yesterday over email because I've been kind of distant since the situation happened. Um, and I asked her to talk about it.Antoinette: Yeah. We're actually supposed to meet next week to talk about the situation and what happened. I want to tell her how I felt in that moment, and I want to tell her how I felt obligated to apologize and make it smoother.
Matt: I’ve often felt like an impostor. Sometimes it kind of feels like describing my Halloween costume to someone. Because, for example, a person dressed as a character from Game of Thrones isn’t actually that character, obviously. They just look like one. And that’s how I feel about being ethnically Korean.
Matt: Well, I guess, um, in part I - I'm almost envious, you know? Because I - I want to be a more complex person who has ties to a different culture, you know. I guess I wish I could be a little bit more of what Jay is as - who he is, his place in America as a, you know, Korean American. Listener: I really didn’t know how to talk about race. It just wasn’t part of my family culture or my regional culture.
Anna Sale: Kathleen wrote in to us about a friendship that she had starting in middle school... with another white girl. They were close… but race never came up between them. Until the night that Barack Obama was elected president, when they were 15. Anna Sale: Kathleen says after that, she and her friend drifted apart. But they followed each other on social media, and several years ago, Kathleen saw a Facebook post from her pop up in her timeline.
Anna Sale: Not take up too much space. There's the ways in which that sounds like you're making room for other people to step forward and take up space. There's also a way in which that sounds like shrinking. Do you know what I mean? Anna Sale: Coming up…more stories about when race has become a flashpoint in your friendships. And how those moments of tension...Ajay: I wouldn't say that we're laughing about it, like we're not sort of constantly laughing about like,"Oh, isn't it funny how like racism is the most charged and unacknowledged element of American life? Ha ha ha!"Ajay: But, uh I think we would say like,"Oh yeah, well that's because you know, you're white and I'm not.
Mary Jane: So it was a hot summer day one time and I remember we’d been playing for hours, and Jane’s dad had been working on his Car and he finally finished waxing it. And he said to Jane,"well, it’s time to go!" Anna Sale: The first time that happened, Ashley was 9 years old. Ashley's Black, and her closest friend was a Mexican-American girl. They were bused to school together every day and then, out of the blue, Ashley says her friend just stopped talking to her.
Anna Sale: A listener we're calling James grew up in New Jersey. He also was one of the only Black kids who grew up in his town. But for him, race came up in his friendships in a different way. Anna Sale: James’s closest friend was a white guy we’re calling Mike. And after college, they decided to be roommates in New York City together. It was 2014, not long after the man that shot and killed Trayvon Martin was acquitted of the murder. And like a lot of people we heard from, James said what was happening in the news was changing the way he understood racial dynamics in his friendships.
Anna Sale: For a listener we’re calling Ajay a tectonic shift in a friendship that happened when he was in his early 20's. His longtime friend, who we’re calling Sam, is white. Ajay is Indian American. And they were talking about Ajay's older brother, who has a developmental disability. Anna Sale: Did you try, did you try to say like, no, no, no, I'm not sure you get it? Did you try to explain it to him?
Anna Sale: Chrishana and Sarah first met back in 2014. They were both starting out as attorneys at a public defender’s office in Brooklyn and ended up eventually sharing an office. Chrishana White: Well, I think it was because Sarah had said like, she's like, oh, so you're segregating your friends. And so I think once like she planted that seed in my mind, I was like, ah, I can see how you say that or how it looks like that. UmChrishana White: Not bad, but I was like, 'oh, this, you know, this is something to reflect on'.
Chrishana White: I think I did what was, what was easy or what felt easy to me at the time, um, but like, I really hope that, that you, it hasn't affected our friendship in any way or like what you perceive to be like our closeness. Anna Sale: What's it like to sit and talk together in one room about this and have me ask you these questions. How do you all feel right now?Sarah Lorr: Of course she does. She loves it. She loves it. Um, I mean I feel good about it. The thing is we've talk, the truth is that I feel like we've talked about so much of this in the fabric of our friendship. That's the only way I could have ever made a joke like that.
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