What I Do When My White Friends Say Something Racist: A Teacher’s Perspective
The first time it happened, we were standing by the cooler at a July cookout, paper plates in our hands. My friend Jen—who I’ve known since before our kids were born—was talking about her daughter’s new school. “It’s great,” she said, “but I’m a little nervous about the neighborhood. You know, it’s getting more…” She paused, looked at the ground, then at me. “Just more diverse, I guess. I mean, that’s fine, but I worry about test scores.”
I knew exactly what she meant. She meant Black and brown families moving in. She meant her daughter might be one of only two white kids in class. She meant she had already started Googling private schools. And I knew that if I said anything beyond “Oh, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I would be the one making it awkward.
So I said “Oh, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” and then I spent the rest of the afternoon replaying that conversation in my head, feeling my face get warm every time I looked at the coolers.
This is what I’m tired of. Not Jen exactly, but the pattern. The way that being friends with me—outspoken, light-skin mixed, teacher at a public middle school—seems to give some of my white friends permission to say their quieter, lower-case racist thoughts out loud. Not the angry kind. Not the hood-wearing, chanting kind. Just the “I don’t have a problem with them, but…” kind. The “some of my best friends are…” kind. The “I voted for Obama twice” kind. And I’m so, so tired of being the one who has to decide, in real time, whether to let it slide, make a joke, or deliver a full lecture.
A few weeks ago, I dropped my son off at a birthday party at Jen’s house. Another parent was there, someone I didn’t know well. We got to talking about summer camps. She said, “We’re doing a STEM camp this year. But not at the YMCA downtown, because, honestly, the kids there are just…” She made a face. “I mean, you’re a teacher, you know.”
I knew. But what I actually said was, “I do know. I teach downtown.”
She laughed nervously and walked away to check the pizza.
Later, my son asked me on the ride home, “Why did that lady make a face about kids at the YMCA?”
I had nothing. I said, “She was being a little unfair,” and then I changed the subject to cake.
That moment stayed with me longer than the party itself. Because here’s the thing I keep forgetting as an adult: children are always listening. They hear the pauses, the sideways glances, the careful rephrasing. They see when I swallow my words and force a smile. And what they’re learning, in those moments, is that race is something we don’t actually talk about—just a thing that makes grown-ups squirmy.
I’ve been teaching for eleven years. In my classroom, I have rules about how we talk to each other. We don’t interrupt. We use “I feel” statements. We ask clarifying questions before we assume offense. And when a student says something biased—and they do, often—I have a stock set of responses. I say, “Can you tell me more about what made you say that?” or “What evidence do you have for that?” or “That doesn’t match my experience, and here’s why.”
These phrases work in a classroom. They lower the temperature. They give the child a chance to explain, and they give me information about whether this is ignorance or cruelty. But outside of school, with my friends, I forget my own script. I get polite. I get quiet. I get tired.
The exhaustion is partly the labor of having to translate. It’s not just that Jen doesn’t see the coded meaning in “getting more diverse.” It’s that I have to decide whether to explain it to her—again—in a way that keeps the friendship intact. Explaining racism gently, without accusation, is a skill. I’ve gotten very good at it. I can do it over a plastic cup of cheap red wine while our kids run through the sprinkler. I can do it in the school parking lot during drop-off, in the three minutes before the bell. I can do it in a text message with emojis at the end so it doesn’t seem too harsh.
But the tired part is that I shouldn’t have to be the one who always explains. And also, I can’t stop explaining. Because if I don’t explain, my kids will absorb the silence. And if I don’t explain, Jen will say it again to someone else, maybe at a playground, maybe to a Black parent who isn’t as patient as I am. And then she’ll say “I didn’t mean it that way,” and she’ll be telling the truth.
So here’s what I’ve started doing, in the messy middle of trying to parent and teach and keep friends.
When I’m feeling like I can engage, I use the same phrase I use in my classroom: “Can you tell me more about that?” I ask it calmly, the same way I ask a kid who’s just said something ugly. More often than not, the person backtracks. They say, “Oh, I didn’t mean anything bad.” Which sometimes is true. And then I say, “I know you didn’t mean it bad. But when you say ‘more diverse’ like that, it sounds like you’re saying ‘worse.'” That naming of the subtext is the hard part. But I’ve learned to do it right before taking a bite of food or bending down to tie a shoe. The small action makes it less confrontational.
When I’m too tired—when I’ve already had three of those conversations that week and my emotional tank is on empty—I say what’s actually true. “I love you, but I can’t have this conversation right now.” That one is scary. It’s vulnerable. It leaves the discomfort out in the open. But I’ve learned that it’s better than being silently resentful for the next two days. It also models something for my kids: you don’t have to absorb every unfair thing just because someone you care about said it.
With my own children, I’ve started prepping them before we go to social events. Short, low-key reminders. “You might hear someone say something about people’s neighborhoods or schools or skin color. It might sound strange. If it confuses you, come ask me later.” This has worked better than I expected. My eight-year-old now has a phrase she uses: “That didn’t sound kind.” She’ll say it directly, with no malice—just a child’s simple correction. It shames almost every adult who hears it, and honestly? They deserve that.
There’s also a quieter change I’ve made. I’ve stopped trying to be every white friend’s teacher. I used to think that if I was gentle enough, patient enough, I could slowly bring everyone to a better understanding. That belief has faded. Some friendships thrive on these hard conversations. Others just survive them. And a few have quietly ended. I won’t say that’s all fine; it hurts. But I’ve also realized that not every relationship is meant to survive the truth.
At the end of the party, Jen pulled me aside. She said, “I didn’t mean to say something stupid earlier. I’ve been reading this book, actually.” She mentioned a title I’d recommended to her last year. She’d finally gotten to it. She said, “It made me think about, like, what my daughter is learning from me even when I don’t think I’m teaching.”
We stood there for a second, both holding our Solo cups. I didn’t feel a big rush of hope. I just felt like, for tonight, the listening had gone somewhere a tiny step further.
On the drive home, my daughter said, “I told the lady at the party that I didn’t like her face.”
I laughed, surprised. “You did?”
“Yeah. She said ‘kids are just…’ and I said ‘My mom says don’t judge people you don’t know.'”
I looked at her in the rearview mirror. She was completely serious. There was no victory in her tone. She was just telling me what she’d done.
And I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know if that was a victory or a mistake. I still don’t. But I told her she did fine, and then we listened to the same song three times in a row, which is what she wanted.
I’m still tired. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. But I’m also starting to accept that tired is part of the work. Not the inspirational kind of work that people post about on social media. The ordinary, daily kind. The kind you do while standing by a cooler in someone’s backyard, choosing your words slowly, trying to remember you love this person, and also trying not to let your own kids grow up thinking that silence was the only answer.
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