"I Think of You as White"

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

I'm grateful to Shanti Joy Gold for bringing this story back to light. Although I've shared it a few times, I've never done so here.

It was the late 80s and I was living in the South of France. I was spending a year as a teaching assistant in two secondary schools, and at the gathering for all of those assigned to the region, I met LG who was also going to be in Nîmes. Since neither of us fancied dorm-style living in the schools, we opted to share a flat. It's the kind of thing you do at 21 when it doesn't seem to matter that you barely know someone. But as it turns out, it did matter. A lot!

LG was from the Midwest in the USA and our early conversations were littered with phrases I'd now think of as serious red flags.

The look on her face as if saying the word "Black" was uncomfortable.

The fact that she didn't know any Black people, not an issue in itself except that she seemed to think of us as an alien species.

Her surprise that I was fluent in French at the end of my degree when she could barely string two sentences together. (Thank you, Queen's College and UWI Cave Hill for ensuring that between the ages of 14 and 21 I spoke French daily during term time.)

The fact that I was very well read and pretty knowledgeable about a lot of things, especially because she wasn't. I'm not being mean here, just stating facts.

If we had had some of those conversations before signing a lease together, then perhaps I would have thought twice. But we didn't, and I was left to discover her ingrained acceptance of white dominant culture norms bit by bit.

And so to the conversation that completely flummoxed me. As usual, we were talking about our backgrounds and experiences. And she said: "You're not like any other Black person I've seen. In fact, I think of you as white."

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know how to process it.

As I remember it, I gaped at her, then left the flat and went for a long, long walk, returning several hours later. As I walked I tried to figure out what was bothering me; something I'd easily be able to see if it happened now. My head felt like it would explode as I tried to cope with the myriad of emotions that sentence had ignited. When I returned, I let her know, somehow, that that wasn't quite the compliment she thought it was.

If I were in that same conversation now, I'd talk about her assumption of whiteness as the standard for education, articulateness, achievement and the like. I'd talk about how her statement attempted to negate or erase my identity as a Black woman.

For me, this falls into the "where are you from" and "you're so articulate" bucket, though it goes one step further. It's about an innate assumption that you are other, or that others like you are usually other, and that negative characteristics are ascribed to those who share your identity.

For LG her statement was paying me a great compliment, because by her standards, nothing could be better, but it left me cold, and though we continued to share a flat, our budding friendship cooled, and we didn't stay in touch after the year was over.

I can only hope that as she matured, she learned something. After all, there were lots of positive qualities she could have commented on without going down that road.

Folx racialised as Black, has anything like this ever happened to you?

Folx racialised as white, have you ever found yourself thinking something like what LG said? Can you see how there might be a better way?

Thanks for reading my perspective,

Sharon

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I am an anti-racism educator and activist, the author of “I’m Tired of Racism”, and co-host of The Introvert Sisters podcast.

© Sharon Hurley Hall, 2025. All Rights Reserved. This newsletter is published on beehiiv (affiliate link).