So, I posted to my Instagram stories yesterday about how I’m not friends with white people, starting two years ago, and a couple people asked me for an explanation or more information so I’m writing this.

My question is this: why should I be friends with white people?

I just find it super surprising that when a person of color, whether they’re stuck in academia or white queer spaces, posts online that they don’t have any friends who share their race, no one bats an eye but, when I post that I don’t have white friends, I get weird reactions.

The reaction to the story confused me. One white person immediately reshared the story and said something about what it would take to be friends with me and did a public poll about whether the “color of someone’s skin” should be a factor in whether you’re friends with them or not. Honestly, this reaction confused the shit out of me because it was from someone who I don’t have a relationship with, have never talked to, and just don’t know in general! If it were from someone who I know, I’d understand it but, like, I don’t know you? Like, of course we don’t have a relationship that we’ve cultivated that we would define as friendship because we’ve never even had a single conversation or seen one another before! Imagine if, instead of friendship I said dating! If I said, I don’t date white people and you were like “WHY NOT” I’d feel super weird? Same in this scenario, my dude (Okay, sorry, shouldn't have used the blatantly gendered term "dude" here).

But anyways, a couple of other people also asked me for an explanation around why I’m not friends with white people and I’ll give a more detailed answer here, including an explanation around why, in spite of not being open to white friendships at least right now, I’m there for white people in other ways and why I have white clients.

First of all, who we are friends with are often decided by environmental factors. Often (or, this is the way I grew up), we grow up making friends within our own ethnic communities and it’s only when we enter the institution of school that whiteness swoops in and “saves” us from our own ethnicity. So, we tend to make white friends when we’re in school or in workplaces that are white. We tend to make friends of our own race when we go home. It’s hard as hell to make friends of races that are not white but also not of our own races. More on that later.

When I work as an astrologer, I’m often literally in my room writing or meeting clients and not making friends with anyone. None of my roommates are white so there’s almost no chance of me running into white people at home. When I do venture outside and collaborate with people, I try to do it with collectives and orgs that are people of color led and run. Moreover, I work at an Asian American organization running around to different immigrant neighbors in my day job. Half the time, I’m not even speaking English.

So, reason number one of why I don’t have white friends: I actually don’t have a whole lot of friends in the first place because I don’t go outside that much.

Reason number two of why I don’t have white friends: environmental factors. I’m not in school or in some other kind of predominantly white institution. I’m spending most of my time surrounded by people of color so my chances of making white friends are just super slim. I did make choices to build this type of environment for myself.

I like being around people of color, of doing community work that feeds me emotionally, of not doing anti-racist work in white institutions but just commiting most of my time to feeding communities of color. I find that I use the word racism a lot less. This makes me happier because it makes me feel like less of a broken record. I think Audre Lorde (I could be wrong) was the person who said that racism is a word which, once said, always feels like it is being said too often and, personally, I think that’s because it’s a word that comes up a lot in white institutions in discussions where racial issues are intellectualized and not acted upon. Having to use the word racism less and getting to just spend time doing arts and astrology with people of color to feed them and let them feed me just makes me limit the amount of time I want to spend screaming. My mood has gotten better. I’m not angry all the time. I learned that my anger is not an intrinsic part of my personality but a fight or flight response which comes up when confronting whiteness. I’ve learned that I actually have a personality! I’m around people who see my personality! I’m no longer in spaces where I have to either perform a stereotype or confound one and this has taught me that I’m a real person!

So, that’s why I’m not friends with white people—because I’m not in white spaces because not being in white spaces makes me feel real.

The third reason why I’m not friends with white people: if I don’t put myself in predominantly white spaces, then I see very few white people because white people seldom leave white spaces.

It’s really not my fault that, by not putting myself in white spaces, my chances of interacting with white people becomes next to zero. I don’t see you fuckers anywhere else!!! Why do you think that I have to always come to you? Taking issue with someone who doesn’t have white friends when white people don’t even leave their white spaces is like saying to someone, “How come you’re not constantly making yourself uncomfortable and coming into my cultural space and doing the work that needs to be done to deserve my friendship?” That’s like the person who reblogged my post when there’s never been a situation when we’ve never even been in a situation in which we found ourselves in the same room before. It’s saying “Why aren’t you coming to me so that I can have your friendship (if I wanted it)?” This isn’t fucking friendship! It’s a power move.

So, if you’re a white person who spends all our time surrounded by white people, we’re probably not friends because we don’t run into each other. What about the white people I do run into?

The fourth reason why I’m not friends with white people has to do with the way I define friendship. Again, saying that I’m not friends with white people doesn’t mean that I’m not there for some people who happen to be white in other ways. When I get a white client, I care about them and I sometimes care about them enough to discuss issues of race with them so that they can grow as people. I’m not going to do that with just any white person because, when race comes up in a relationship I have with white people, I’m always the one doing the work and I know that I will be constantly attacked if they’re not also doing work. I only do this for clients if they ask for it because it’s meaningful work that they have chosen to value and do together.

However, friendship is something separate. Friendship is an utopia. It is a commitment towards the community that you desire to build.

Compare this with people who say that they don’t date white people. Why do people say this? It’s because romance is a type of commitment that we take very seriously enough to imagine that it will affect our lives forever. When people refuse to date white people, it’s because they don’t want to involve a constant discussion of race in that type of commitment. Some people are up for it. Some people are not. Both are fine.

We should really start to associate the type of forever commitment that we associate with romantic relationships with friendships. Because friends are really there for you. If I’m friends with someone, then I can see myself helping them raise a baby or making decisions to relocate based on that friendship. That doesn’t mean that I will always move to be closer to a friend just like how someone might not always choose to move to be closer to a romantic partner because, let’s be honest, no relationship is ever truly permanent and we all change with time. And also because, sometimes, relationships are meant to be distant at times and close at other times. However, I’m very cool with considering life decisions based on expectations that a friend might have of me. I’d like my friendships to be commitments, even if I’m often falling short of my own ideals.

So, as I’m making friendships and putting work into these heart connections, I’m basing friendships off an idea of what I want to commit my life to. My utopia does not involve me constantly having to explain race, feel confronted by stereotypes about me, or angry all the time. Duh! Whose utopia would contain these types of things?

That being said, I’m not saying that my utopia is a place where I’m around people of my same background all of the time or doing no work at all. A commitment to not be in white spaces is not the same as a commitment to spaces where you’re comfortable all of the time. It’s not a decision to withdraw or a less politically active way to be.

Because of the way America is segregated, it might be super hard to build relationships with other people of color outside of white spaces because the only spaces allowed to be “multicultural” are often culturally white. Sometimes, exiting white institutions means retreating back to your ethnic enclave. I’m trying my best to not do that and I’m better at it some days than others. But anyway, I’m trying to make a decision to not be around whiteness all the time, not a decision to be comfortable all the time.

So, reason number four about why I’m not friends with white people: Friendship is about utopia building. I want my utopia to be politically charged in a way that doesn’t have to answer to whiteness all the time. While I’d move to a different city for a friend or help raise a child for a friend, I wouldn’t do any of these things if doing so meant that I would be put in white spaces all of the time. I’d only make that type of decision with someone who is willing to build a life with me and not someone who expects me to come into their cultural territory so that they can decide if they want to use me or discard me.