On the app Jodel, an app for students to share thoughts anonymously, I had the strangest discussion the other day: It started out with the question if you could be in a relationship with a very right-wing person if you were a very liberal person. Aka: Could you share a bed with a racist in a long term romantic relationship if you were anti-racist.
For me, the answer was a clear no. No, I could not be in a committed relationship with a racist, and for that matter neither a convinced sexist, homophobe, transphobe or xenophobe or literally anyone that was against basic human rights and basic respect for a certain group of people. Yes, that also includes people who'd want to see Drumpf dead. You just don't do that shit.
As it happens so very often in online discussions, of course this one as well turned to a pretty different topic soon: A person who described themselves as Mediterranean explained how they went to homepartys quite a lot and they tended to be the only non-white person there - in an anti-racist group of friends.
Quickly, a new discussion started, between those who were convinced that most anti-racist people had no POC friends even though they were against racism, and those including me who thought that was rubbish and that you can just as well be against racism if your group of friends was 100% white.
Now let me be clear: I do have POC friends. Yet, I didn't pick those friendships because those people fit into my plan for diversity amongst the people I deal with. Instead, I just met them somewhere at some point somehow and got to know them and started liking them. Because they are awesome people. And so are my white friends. I mean, why would I deal with anyone who wasn't awesome? Because their race matched my personal anti-racism agenda?
What I am saying is: Friendships need to develope naturally. And by that, I mean that you meet people in your day to day life, that could be in class or at work or in your sports club or because you have a friend in common who introduces you or because you start chatting about your favourite TV show online or because you start talking on a train ride or - the possibilities are endless. And then step two is getting to know each other, which is maintained through keeping in touch. Then, you have to click a certain way to actually like each other. This is how friendship works. You see how none of these steps is "check which skincolour that person has"? You know why? Because it doesn't matter when it comes to being open for new people.
The other way around, if I don't click with someone, I don't click with someone. If I have a problem with someone as a person, I don't care how POC they are. Or white, for that matter.
However, I'll still fight for their rights. I'll fight for the guy at the train station who called me racist because I was too broke to give him any change so he isn't deported back to where he came from just because he isn't born here. I'll fight for the refugee mom who didn't show up for any meetings we set up to help her get furniture. I'll fight for the dudes who sexually assaulted women at the main station in Cologne on last new years eve to get the same process and treatment as any German person who sexually assaults people. Because this is what my moral compass tells me. That every person deserves the same basic human rights.
There are so many reasons why someone may not have any POC friends. The only one that is not okay is if you refuse to get to know POC because you have stereotypes and prejudice stuck in your head and refuse to learn better.
Thing is, if you have a very diverse group of friends only for the sake of diversity, are you any better than the ones who refuse to have diverse friends? Wouldn't it be exactly the same as having the alibi black friend so you are allowed to say racist things because you "can't be racist because you have a black friend!"? Wouldn't it be like having an accesoire to make you look more liberal?
I think what truly matters is who you're actively fighting for even if you don't know them personally. Or if you disike them as a person. I'd rather have a person whose friends are 100% white who'd actively fight racism where they find it than a person who has the most POC friends and settles down at that.
So from this point, I'll go on and accept friendship where I find it. Might be in my super-white class. Might be at the multi-cultural festival. I don't care, if we click, we click. Because when if comes to friendship, that might be the only point where I dare to say: I don't see colour. I see friends.
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