What do you mean I'm racist?

Oh I'm sure the title alone got your attention.  A recent poll says that 38.4% of all Americans do not have friends of other races.  But that says all.  Guess what the averages are by race?  Well, according to the study that sparked the poll, African Americans have friends of other races about 65% of the time.  Hispanic Americans hit an all-time high at over 93% of them have friends of other races.  So why's the study say only 38.4% total have friends of another race?  Sounds like that number should be much higher.  White Americans, Caucasian of European decent, guess what?  They report that they as a whole, no kidding, only 25% of them have any friends outside of their own race.  Are you one of those white people?  Do you only have other white friends?  Think about it.  You live in a community or neighborhood.  How many other races are represented?  I lived in a fantastic neighborhood, upper middle class in Kansas.  The whole neighborhood was white, except me and one other family.  The other family was Chinese.  I'm part Chinese.  Asian Americans were not reported.  We tended to be represented in every facet though with African Americans reporting an average of 3 of us as friends.  White America tended to report 1 of us if they were part of the 25% that actually have other races represented.  But yea, White America is 75% totally white.  No other influences.  

Now what's that mean?  Well, I started thinking about my friends and who they socialize with.  Most of my friends are, well, white.  I have quite a few black friends, a couple Hispanic friends, a couple of Native American decent, but mostly white.  And by white, they don't have any other non-white friends other than me.  I'm that in percentage.  I'm the Asian friend and guess what?  I'm not full on Asian.  Is that their fault?  I don't know.  I know people that give Native Americans and Asian Americans a different status than African Americans and/or Latino Americans.  Stereotypes maybe?  I mean we are still a society of stereotyping and profiling and most of us know absolutely nothing about profiling yet we love to judge a book by the cover.  Most of my "white" friends claim to not be racist.  Honestly, and if you're one of them reading this and recognize this as you, well, yes, then I am probably using you as one of the gauge here, but I'd say that half of them are sort of.  

Sort of?  What's "sort of"?  They don't have any friends outside of white other than me.  They make snipe comments when they see people of other races where they think they don't belong.  Don't get me wrong.  They don't see it as racist at all.  But, yes, to a lot of people it is.  Pretty much anyone of "color" (I hate that term) would probably find it racist or at least naive at best.  I've been called a racist before.  The statement made me confused and I really did quite a bit of "soul searching".  Am I racist?  I have a good friend, like a sister to me, who I introduce that way, who just happens to be black.  If she needed anything, if her kids needed anything, I wouldn't hesitate to help her.  She's a great woman, good job, works hard, owns her own home, taken care of her 3 kids on her own and honestly probably 10 times the mother I have ever been.  She's like family to me.  In another life she damn well might have been.  God knows that most Southerners, white or not, probably have some Native or other in the mix somewhere.  Plenty of "high yellow" blacks would relocate themselves where no one would know them and passed themselves off as white back 100 years ago.  It was the nature of the beast then.  I'd like to think it's not anymore, but well, yes, it still is...sort of.  

How do you seriously go through life, where your race is no longer even the predominant race in the country, hasn't been for the last decade, and have no friends of other races?  I'm blown away.  Then I thought about it.  I went to high school in a white community.  I think we had one black family in the whole school.   We had several Hispanic from a small town on the outskirts of the county.  I was friends with none of them.  All my friends were "white" and because of the fact that I have a Germanic last name, there was a lot of Hungarian decent families in the community, well, no one ever questioned whether I was white or not.  I had to be white.  I looked just like most of the Hungarians.  In fact, I was a little fairer skinned than most of them being Chinese which is one of the more pale of the Asians.  My first black friend was in college.  I had become a friend of a Delta who shared my enthusiasm for billiards and both being in sororities we had a kind of kindred mindset.  One of the guys we all hung out with was a black football player.  He had been one of my first sweethearts best friends.  They had gone to Catholic school together, played ball together, and the friendship extended to college.  His family bent over backwards for him to go to a predominantly white school for the "opportunities", but one time he and I had talked about why he didn't date much.  Most of his friends of course were white.  Now here's the kicker.  His grandmother told him she would disown him, heck even his parents said it, if he ever dated a "white girl".  Can you imagine?  

My grandparents were the same on my mother's side.  Black was never an option.  Not that was ever a problem.  I had a thing for blue eyes from a very young age.  Probably because my Granddaddy had the biggest blue eyes you have ever seen and he was my world when I was little.  I made him proud as a peacock.   A feeling like that, having someone who loves you so unconditionally like that, well that will ingrain certain attractions.  Yet, in their day and age, they were considered really progressive.  Grams only rented to "good black families" because she didn't want the "trash" ruining their properties.  She considered it very progressive to use the word "black" since that was what the black community wanted to be called back then when many of her generation were refusing to call them anything but "colored".  Of course, they, my grandparents were born at the turn of the last century and no matter what anyone says, yes, we've come a long way, baby.  

Perhaps not as far as we had hoped.  But who's fault is that?  I still have mostly "white" friends.  I have a lot of friends of every race though.  Perhaps that is the challenge though for those that have made no effort to ever be friends with anyone other than their immediate circles.  "All we are is all we know", and a lot of us, regardless of race or otherwise, simply refuse to expand our experiences.  Over 80% of all Americans live within 50 miles of the hospital they were born in.  Fifty miles at the turn of the last century was a day long plus ride on a good horse.  In a carriage it was an overnight trip.  Now a lot of us will drive 50 miles a day just to and from work.  A twenty to thirty minute drive to work is nothing.  Yet in ways, we still live in those sad shadows of almost a century gone by.  We live in the hovels that life laid out for us by the parents we happened to be given, and apparently if that was two white parents, it means we only have a 25% chance of expanding our views outside of that hovel.  

Not sure how I feel about it.  I don't know very many Asians that don't have other friends, that haven't mixed ourselves into American society, white, black, purple or orange.  But is it that "white" America still views the other races as some sort of lower class?  I mean I told my boys when they were growing up, "I don't care what girl you bring home, white, black, purple, green or orange, but you bring home any trash, I will throw it out."  Is a lot of "white" America still treating the certain races, even if it's only subconciously, like lower class citizens?  I don't know.  I've experienced racism.  I had a very fancy "white" woman looking me up and down once and at first in the politest tone she could muster (sarcasm) ask me if I was "Indian".  No.  Then a pause, "Are yeeeewwww Mexxxxican?"  No.  She looked me up and down.  The amount of disgust increasing with each up and down.  As she was about to open her mouth, I shot her a look.  She fumbled through her fancy Prada purse, tapping her fancy Prada shoe, after I flashed my military ID to the cashier.  This woman had more money at her disposal for her entire outfit than I made a year.  It was a rude awakening to me.  Some people are racist and don't even know it.  Even as they open their mouths, they don't realize it.  And I've had black woman tell me that I need to come back to my race after she had seen me at a party that aforementioned friend had and this woman happened to see me out with my "white" boyfriend a week later.  Later she even told my friend to "have a conversation" with me, who promptly explained that I wasn't actually "black".  I suppose being ambiguous looking has always been a positive overall, but it also has afforded me the unique opportunity to see that racism isn't exclusively "white".  

The only thing that I can say, no matter what our race opinion is, put us in the military and a comrade's life at risk, we see no color.  We might fall back into our racial pitfalls when we're home, but when those Twin Towers came down, no American, black, white, purple or orange, gave a crap what color were the dead.  We are American.  If we happen to be "white" American, then it might be a good idea to expand ourselves a little.  Not because white America is now the minority, but because it's a little weird that the rest of the races have friends of other races at rates of 65% or more and only 25% of white America does.  It's just such a stark contrast it screams something is still wrong in America.  If you happen to look around you and realize you are one of those 75% of white America, take that pilates class with the non-white instructor or say hello to that non-white co-worker.  I don't know.  Strike up a conversation with them.  You're probably going to find out that they are just like you, afterall they're hanging out doing the same things you do.  They're human, they're American most likely, and you just might expand not just who you know but who you are.  All we will ever be is only that which we allow ourselves to know.    

Trust is not given or earned....Stop beating yourself up.

Trust...We've all heard various forms of advice on it.  That it should be earned not given.  Once broken, never repaired.  Trust only half of what you see and even less of what you hear.  There are all kinds of advice on how do we trust someone.  There's not a whole lot of advice out there on how to build trust.  Which if you think about it seems kind of lopsided.  If we all seem to want to know how to trust, why don't we all want to know how to earn trust?  Is it inherent on how to earn trust?  What are the things that we expect when we trust someone?  Trust is equated with honesty.  Truthfulness.  Maintaining one's confidence.  We expect people to keep their big mouths shut when we tell them something in confidence, particularly if we "trust" them.  Faithfulness.  We expect our partners in relationships to be faithful.  A cheating spouse is often said to be "breaking trust".  We also expect someone we trust to be able to understand our faults.  We tell someone that we "trust" more about ourselves and we expect them to respect that only some people get to know those things about us.  We expect people we trust to "have our backs".  We expect those that we trust to stand up in our defense when we cannot defend ourselves.  Trust is a very complicated word, yet we seem to be more worried about who we should trust rather than what we do to be trustworthy.

There cannot be trust without being trustworthy.  I would simply argue if you read self help books and magazine articles about how to choose better people, ones worthy of your trust, then it's time to look in a mirror.  What is the reflection in the mirror?  Victim?  Empowered?  Grossly self centered?  In spite of what some self help books would tell us, trust is about us.  We give our trust willingly and when we are surprised by someone who breaks it it is not about them.  Seriously.  It's about ourselves.  I love to bring up my ex-husband and our relationship at times in examples.  He cheated on me while I was pregnant, he rubbed my nose in it, et cetera.  Yet, those self help books have one thing correct.  It was my choice but not at the level they think.  I was a doormat.  If he said "jump", I responded with "how high, which direction and how much hangtime"?  I became the doormat because I was trying to make up for his lack of trustworthiness with my own excess trustworthiness.  I've watched it over and over.  Someone who is completely untrustworthy somehow enthrall complete devotion out of the trustworthy.  Heck in all honesty, I've watched the less than trustworthy try desperately to make grossly untrustworthy more trustworthy by trying to be some version of trustworthier.  Phew.  Yes, that's a mouthful.  So first and foremost, accept that you will always be trustworthy to some.  You may or may not be trustworthy to others.  You're not keeping everyone's secrets.  There are some people that you could care less what secrets they are hiding.  There are some people that being trustworthy for them, to them, would be a lot of work for you, because frankly you don't deem them worthy.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying if they for some reason dump one of their deepest, darkest secrets on you that you should run out and breach that trust--that would make you an *sshole.  But, I am saying that we have to acknowledge not that other people break our trust or are not as trustworthy to us as others are but that to recognize that...We have to recognize that there are some people that we could care less about earning or having their trust.  Thus, we acknowledge the opposite.  There are some people that could care less about earning or having our trust.

But then, come back to why do we not focus on what makes us trustworthy?  What makes us good people?  Women are often the ones that are much easier to see who they do or don't trust.  We tend to always have one or two other women that we trust.  We're obvious about it.   But just like the movie "Mean Girls", often those are not people that we trust either.  Men, I've been told often are more selective.  It's not so much selectivity as they tend to still sit and shoot the bull with guys that they don't trust.  One of my best friends is a guy that I grew up with.  He told me once that another guy was a good friend, but he wouldn't trust the guy with a girlfriend or wife.  Seems ridiculous?  Not if you think about it.  I have a really good friend who I trusted over the years with everything.  Then one day, a friend of hers who had said something a few weeks earlier that was inappropriate came running up to me, claiming that she had never said what she said and that I was mistaken.  The witnesses to her transgression were sitting there also and of course one of them came to my "defense" that it had been exactly what she had said.  The conversation that followed was whether my friend should have mentioned it to this other friend of hers.  Maybe, maybe not.  Since I knew I had mentioned it only to have confirmation that it wasn't meant the way it had been said, the friend of mine simply could've been trying to create reassurance by telling this other friend of hers.  Yet, since I had specified that I did not wish her to say anything, she had broken some amount of my trust.  Does that mean that I don't trust her at all?  Well, no.  Like my guy friend told me years ago, I'll trust her with some information, but regard that certain information will not have the same respect from her.  Telling her certain things will mean that the confidence invested may or may not be maintained.

Is it my fault for telling her?  Yes and no.  Once someone breaks some form of trust, then it is wasteful to assume that they will not break that trust again.  Yet, we absolutely have no way of being absolutely sure that trust is not misplaced until someone breaks it in the first place.  Yet, there's no point in cutting off one's nose in spite of one's face.  It may be that the person is trustworthy in almost every capacity excepting that one.  I used to say that my ex could be a great guy and would give the shirt off his back to a complete stranger in need.  All true.  But if you're his wife, well, good luck with that.  His trustworthiness ends as soon as certain things are in play.  That trustworthiness doesn't affect in any way, shape or form his trust worth to his male friends.  Interesting?  I think so.  When it comes to this friend that told another friend of hers what I asked her not to?  Well, it's simple.  There's some things that I can trust her with and other things that I'm better keeping to myself.

So does that mean that we should just accept that some people, or maybe even no people, are going to be as trustworthy as we would like?  No.  Absolutely not.  I have friends that I would trust with my deepest thoughts, my darkest hours and everything about me.  That's really what we are usually talking about when we talk about trust.  We want someone who will be honest with us, tell us, keep our confidence, jump up in our defense when needed, have our back through thick and thin, and be not just the last but the never say anything bad about us.  That is what we expect, what we have come to expect, when we say trust.  We ourselves must be that also though, and if we are honest, we know that we will only do that for certain people.  Some of us may or may not be quicker to run our mouths in a non-trustworthy way about another person, even people that we might call friends.  But none of us can honestly say that we are the epitome of trustworthy with every single person we know.  That would require us to tell them as much as we would tell the people that we trust most.  We would not.  They would not.  Trust is not given.  It is not earned.  Trust is part of what develops in between people at varying levels.  Some people we trust a lot.  Some we would trust with our lives.  Some we would not trust as far as we could pick them up and throw them.  But that trust level should be commiserate with the trust level, the trust worth, that they provide us.