SATIRE
White Lady Wishes She Could Calm Down Around Black People
It’s exhausting to look not racist
A local white lady wishes she would settle the fuck down when she was around Black people, but she did not know how. She couldn’t pre-emptively take a Xanax because she never knew when she would see one of her dear, dear friends.
The local white lady, who insisted she had many Black friends, could never calm the fuck down whenever she saw them. Her interaction with her dear, dear Black friends made her speak as rapidly as one of those auctioneers. She wanted her Black friends' approval so badly that it raised her blood pressure, which was directly connected to her blabberer.
Why, she asked herself, did she always assume her Black friends didn’t have any money? Why could she never shut the fuck up about telling them about the deals she got as if they had approached her asking for coupons? Why could she never stop complaining about her rich white friends, as if she had nothing in common with them?
Why did she insist on being relatable? Why did she always have to say, “I know what it’s like to be Black because I’m a woman!” Why couldn’t she put a cork in it?
And that disgusting little detail she always added about being from the city? What was that about? She also had to make sure they knew she was from the part of the city that was integrated. Not all cops, not all whites, but ethnic and mixed.
Why didn’t her Black friends ever say to her, “Clearly from your upbringing, your politics, and your salt-of-the-earthiness, we can see that you are one of the Good White People. Not like the rest of that racist lot.”
She exhausted herself, trying not to sound white around Black people. Sometimes, she had to excuse herself, shove cotton balls in her butt crack and beneath her breasts, the places she sweated when she was panicking and overexerting her assertions.
When the interaction with her dear, dear Black friends was finally over, she couldn’t decide whether she should get a medal for her effort or feel deep shame because she had neglected to ask her dear, dear friends anything about themselves.
