Dedication To my father, Robert, for “Dream bigger and elsewhere.” Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Introduction One: Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Tell-All Writer Two: Ten Things to Know Before Befriending Me, or “Which Black Guy Are You Getting?” Three: The First Gift Four: Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Canadian Five: Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Foreign Kid Six: Sure, I’ll Be Your Anchor Baby Seven: Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Son Eight: Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Boyfriend Nine: How to Go through Life without Drowning, Part I Ten: Sure, I Guess I’ll Be Your Classic Name-Brand Cookie Eleven: How to Go through Life without Drowning, Part II Twelve: Boomerangs Come Back Thirteen: From Another Mother Fourteen: I Was Promised Ballplayers and Rap Stars, Addicted to the Limelight Fifteen: Sure, I’ll Be Your Woke Black Friend Sixteen: Sherman Klump v. Buddy Love Seventeen: Ivory Skin, Eyes of Something Green Eighteen: Sister, Sister Nineteen: Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Guy—Emphasis on Guy Twenty: How to Go through Life without Drowning, Part III Twenty-One: Song of the South Twenty-Two: Sure, I’ll Be Your Accessory to Larceny Twenty-Three: Sure, I’ll Be Your One That Got Away Twenty-Four: Black Ghost Goes, “Boo!” Twenty-Five: Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Sidekick Twenty-Six: Sure, I’ll Be Your 2016 Shithole Rescapee Twenty-Seven: Smile Through It Twenty-Eight: How to Live Strictly on Common Grounds Twenty-Nine: Sure, I’ll Be Your Bl— RACE WARS!!! Thirty: One of the Good Ones Thirty-One: Conclusion: How to Thrive in a Black Body at Any Age Lexicon to a B lack E xperience N arrative Acknowledgments Notes About the Author Also by Ben Philippe Copyright About the Publisher Introduction It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good white person of liberal leanings must be in want of a Black friend—especially when said good white person is in good fortune. (Rich people love a Black friend, but we will get to that later.) Hi! My name is Ben: I’m your new Black friend. Like any good friend, I aim to always be here for you and your concerns, as problematic as they may occasionally be. Let’s talk about our hopes and dreams, and feel free to ask me if I can swim. When you’re slightly inebriated, you can go on to tell me how white privilege isn’t a thing because your ex once cheated on you with one of your coworkers so how could your life ever be considered “privileged”? We will work through it all as buds, don’t you worry. Unless you’re someone who has no interest in mixing with “a colored”—and let’s face it, that tends to come with an aversion to books in the first place—a Black friend provides a flattering filter to your life. Group photos, parties, social media. Having one is a point of pride you’re not supposed to make too big a deal of but that others will notice around you. My quickstepping over to your table at the restaurant apologizing for running late will catch the eye and emphasize your ability to embrace someone who is different from you and truly celebrate diversity. I understand my societal power and will happily share it with you. I’m the person you glance toward at a comedy show when a comedian says something racial and vaguely problematic. The air will fill with awkward tension until I give—decree—the first guffaw. Only then will the rest of the room feel confident enough to laugh. Now that’s institutional power. This will not be a superficial friendship, mind you! I would never do that to you. Trust me: this is so much deeper than a BLM sticker on the Volvo. You will come to learn a truly uncomfortable amount about me by reading this book. This will be the equivalent of making prolonged eye contact sitting pretzel-style across from one another and holding hands. Nude. This book is the stand-in for a dozen grabbed beers at our regular hole-in-the-wall and thousands of non sequitur text messages. What you’re getting here is a Black friend with whom you can broach, pardon my français , the good stuff. Politics. Religion. Sexuality. Race. The heavy topics. After all, there’s an intimacy to discussing these things with your friends, isn’t there? These are the matters that fuel those late-night conversations after which two friends will either end up closer than ever or staring at each other from across a great divide, reconsidering everything that came before, no matter how many drinks they’ve downed together. And if you are taking a chance here, as you don’t normally “think about race that much,” don’t worry: you’re not the first person I’ve come across who does not typically burden themselves with this topic. You’re here for the friendship first, and race second. I’ve got you. What follows is more or less the written version of a few dozen beers grabbed at our local hangs, walks around the park, or subway rides heading in the same direction after an afternoon movie. Here lies an accumulation of stories, rants, tangents, arguments, and maybe even a few fights. If you are white, don’t worry: you’re not my first white friend. I’ve socialized with enough white people to have developed a sixth sense for the looming threat of a game of Cards Against Humanity and Whole Foods wine after dinner. I low-key enjoy those these days. Another reason why this might all be new, scary, dare I say titillating for you could be the old classic excuse that there just aren’t a lot of Black folks in your neck of the woods. This book might be your very first attempt at a Black friend, and that’s fine! Friendships, like a good cruise ship murder, are defined by means, motive, and opportunity. Despite good intentions, you might simply not have had access to Black people to befriend until now. For instance, a quick Wikipedia survey reveals that there are 1,216 African Americans in the town of Morgantown, West Virginia, which works out to about 4.1 percent of the town’s population. And I completely buy that all of these people might happen to suck. Black people aren’t unicorns; some of us profoundly suck, just like any ethnic grouping under the sun. They might make for bad friends who bring toxicity into your life and whose social media presence infuriates you. Or, they might all live on the same side of town that you simply never venture into—race and class are incestuously linked in America . So, yes: it might not be your fault. But, my new and maybe melanin-lacking friend, we have to be real with each other here, that’s the deal. So, I also have to inform you not having many (or any) Friends of Color could also be the result of assumptions, prejudices, and internalized thought patterns. I’m not talking down to you here—a good friend should never do that. I’m just saying that it’s important to admit our own biases when scoping the world for kinships, partners in crime, and emergency contacts. I myself have a true xenophobic loathing for the French tourists who swarm New York City every year only to loudly complain about everything the city has to offer while riding the subway, thinking they are speaking secret, bitchy Dothraki no one around them could possibly decode. “Non, mais sérieusement, les gars: allez chier. Les Québécois sont généralement corrects mais ciboire que vous êtes agaçants des fois les français de souche. Rentrez donc chez-vous si vous allez chier sur l’entièreté de la culture Américaine.” [spit] Quick sidebar: “African American” is kind of a misnomer in my case. Caribbean Canadian might be more geographically accurate? For one thing, I’m one of those Black guys whose mother tongue is, as displayed above, French. As a result, I can’t puff up my chest and retort, “I’m from America. I was born right here, you yokel!” if a bearded man or red-cheeked white woman frowns at my accent with a “Where you from, boy?” I’m from elsewhere. (The “boy” on the other hand, will still get you a well-earned invitation to go do something very unpleasant to your own body.) Because of this wrinkle of having been born Haitian, raised Canadian, and having adopted America as my third home in adulthood, conversations both about and around race have always been a fixture of my life. My Blackness is what you might call a little scattered. It took me a while to get the hang of it. Lots of books were read, and I’m still learning to this day. This can create complicated ripples around both white and Black people. Hell, I might make some egregious errors in this open friendship of ours. But, being Black is my default state. There is certainly no bravery or artistry to it. I don’t power up a crystal, and there is no Sailor Moon –type animation sequence: I only exist as Black. My skin is a blunt and obvious rock dropped into the lake of the world. Most of the time, I don’t have to do the work of sorting it out, as someone or something in the world will take it upon themselves to tell me exactly what shape my Blackness should take and if I’m doing it right or falling short.