“I have a black friend” is an unfortunate statement that some white people still feel the need to say. College students need to normalize interracial friendships, and that can start with leaving the “I have black friend” statement and other ignorant comments in the past, as the color of one’s skin should not be the only similarity that can lead to friendship.

According to a Reuters poll, 40% of white Americans have solely white friends, while only 25% of non-white Americans only have friendships within their own race. If white people stop avoiding the normalization of interracial relationships, the gap between these statistics would significantly decrease.

It is easiest to recognize the avoidance of interracial friendships on the campuses of predominantly-white institutions such as SU is through the recent rise of so-called “safe spaces,” as they create more isolation between different demographics on campus. Departments such as the Office of Multicultural Affairs and ethnically-affiliated clubs operate as environments that can make minority students feel a false sense of comfort in their own skin. College campuses need to place more focus on shaping every single space, organization, and group into a “safe space.”

The concept is commendable — working to create communities in which one feels comfortable in exhibiting their whole selves. However, the creation of safe spaces creates a sense of social isolation in minority groups, bringing up the questionable issue of “unsafe spaces.”

Students often make the assumption that friendships outside of these so-called “safe spaces” will not provide the same sense of relatability found with other people of color. While it may be true that friends of the same minority group can bond over the hardships they have experienced as people of color, interracial friendships allow people to feel comfortable both inside and out of designated “safe spaces.”

Sara Burke, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at SU, claims that, “If we are talking about long-term social consequences, these friendships do contribute to prejudice reduction.”

By leaving the tendency to gravitate towards only those that look like themselves, white people will no longer have to justify their open-mindedness by name-dropping their minority friends. In order to normalize interracial friendships, white students need to stop limiting themselves to token interracial friendships.

When it comes to attending a predominantly white institution, every person of color will eventually experience being the only non-white person in a room. However, when the SU Fall 2019 census noted that white students make up 52.5% of the student body, it is up to that majority to stand as the solution to de facto segregation. The duty to integrate friend groups should not be left on the shoulders of minorities when it is white people that unintentionally limit their number of friends of color. Having a singular person of color in a friend group should not stand as an acceptable excuse for white people to get away with claiming to be “not racist” or “open-minded to diversity.”

Burke stated that normalizing, not championing, interracial friendships can lead to a better future.

“To at least view such friendships as normative and acceptable would contribute to their greater formation in more innocuous circumstances,” Burke said.

While creating bonds that delve deeper than skin color can work to further eradicate racism, it is going to take much more than merely claiming to have a singular black friend to normalize interracial friendships.

Cori Dill is a freshman studying newspaper journalism and political science. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at crdill@syr.edu. She can be followed on Twitter at @dillcori.

Published on January 12, 2020 at 9:18 pm