kevINda

I Am Not Your Gurrrlfriend

Dear White Lady,

Do not call me “girlfriend.” You know the pronunciation I’m talking about, here. The kind that makes you roll your neck a little bit and lean in for the hi-five. The kind that makes you shift your weight onto one hip while sitting down, as if you’re about to do the two-snaps-up-and-a-circle. The pronunciation of “girlfriend” that makes you purse your lips and cock your little, white head to one side just slightly. You know. “Gurrrlfriend.”

As in, “For real, gurrrlfriend.” Or, “Gurrrlfriend, you know that’s right.” Even, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about, gurrrlfriend.”

No. No, no and even more no. Do not go Black with me. Don’t. Don’t go there.

We aren’t girlfriends. We don’t know each other. You and I, White Lady, are strangers. Maybe I wait on you in the restaurant where I work and we make idle server/guest chitchat. Maybe we strike up a conversation in a doctor’s waiting room. Perhaps you and I just share time and space while you answer phones at my manicurist’s office. Whatever the reason that we’re spending this time together, don’t get it confused. Regardless of how we cross paths, get this straight: we aren’t friends. We aren’t close friends. We aren’t burgeoning friends. And we sure as hell ain’t girlfriends.

And we never will be. You know why? It’s because my real friends who are White respect the fact that we are different and they don’t “go Black” on me. They don’t need to. It’s not necessary to have that particular commonality in order for us to bond. We have other things. Real things. Meaningful things. Things like taking classes and studying together, working at the same theatre, raising children in the same schools. Real shit. It’s not their ability to do a crappity-ass imitation of a Black woman that bonds us. And it’s not an instant closeness that’s formed with them, either. My White friends and I have become friends over time. It’s not some fake closeness that occurred somewhere between me serving their dinner courses or during the time it takes for it to be my turn to get waxed.

So, please, White Lady, for the love of all that is good, do not call me “gurrrlfriend.” I’ll respect you more for it. This doesn’t mean that we’re gonna hang out together or go catch the MLK Day sales together next week. But at least I won’t hate you. That’s a start.

- Inda