“My lifelong friend is a racist!”

Alberta Wilson

antoutoume@aol.com

“My lifelong friend is a racist!”

By Alberta Wilson, as told to me by my daughter-in-law (July 17, 2020)

It happened earlier this evening. My daughter-in-law often meets up with a group of friends but they had been respecting the constraints of the coronavirus until one of them had a personal emergency. As fate would have it, the friend with the urgent matter had to leave her house and they all reconvened at the home of, let’s call her Susan.

As the conversation of the tragedy wore on, someone mentioned an absentee friend and Susan blurted out, “I don’t like her; she’s too liberal.”

My daughter-in-law, let’s call her Amy, disagreed that the missing bud was liberal, freely adding her opinion that she felt she was more “middle of the road” and “such a sweet person!”

Okay! “But what about all that Black Lives Matter stuff she’s been posting on Facebook?” Susan wanted to know. Well, Amy ventured, it was kinda like just encouraging people to be open to what’s happening in the country.

I wasn’t there and I wouldn’t be because I am not a white woman and I do not have this type of lifelong relationship with a group of southern white women. I would never be privy to the ensuing conversation because these are intimate open gatherings among BFFs — White BFFs among themselves. Not having been physically present, my reporting here is “hearsay” in legal lingo and not “admissible” in a court of law. This is not a court of law and Amy was devastated by the conversation that followed.

Verbatim is not possible but Amy read this for content confirmation:

Susan insisted that BLM is a radical group wasting its time criticizing the police, “no more than 1 per cent” of whom would ever do anything wrong to anyone. They should be protesting Black-on-Black crime. “That’s the real problem!” When questioned, she answered that she believes that most of the incidents were made up and those she accepts as real are just “exceptions.” FYI Susan, we are way ahead of you on Black-on-Black crime, a tragic situation that has been weaponized by the conservative right as a talking point to both justify arming its supporters, and excuse the wanton murders of Black men and women by law enforcement. Many if not most of us encourage activists to address larger gun control and violence issues along with the epidemic…