One thing that ‘girlfriend-centric’ shows like “Living Single,” “Sex and the City” and “Girlfriends” all have in common (besides the four ladies formula) is that each woman in the group fits a particular type. In general, you have the loose one, the uptight one, the career-driven one and the wild card (airhead/golddigger/etc). Part of the fun with those shows was knowing just how each different character would react to particular situations. How fun to figure out which one you are most like and which of your girlfriends seem most like the others!
There’s one more commonality about those shows that maybe you have in your own crew as well. All of the groups of ladies on those shows were very demographically similar. Around the same age, almost identical race/ethnic backgrounds (I think Lynn on “Girlfriends” was the only one that had a multi-racial heritage) and similar education.
That’s pretty reflective of real life. We do tend to befriend people who check off the same boxes on their census forms as we do. It’s not necessarily intentional, but many of us grew up in and maybe still live in de facto segregated areas. College was pretty much like “Higher Learning” (Remember Ice Cube explaining the different groups on campus?) and then you got your first real job, befriended the other brown faces at your job and went to after-work events sponsored by groups that cater to professionals of color. Of course your friends are very much like you!
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I don’t think it’s a bad thing to bond with people who share your cultural heritage or upbringing, but I do think the fact that we tend not to have people of other cultures/races/backgrounds in our inner circles helps keep dangerous stereotypes alive. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone a little different from you in your life who you can have candid conversations with.
As kids, we didn’t have a lot of control over our environment and what kind of people were in our lives, but now as adults, many of us who live in big cities anyway, are exposed to a multitude of cultures. Why does it seem that we (and when I say we I mean everyone not just “us”) continue to basically stick to our own? We are pretty much satisfied with keeping others at arms length. We are content with making our politically incorrect, but very funny jokes amongst ourselves and making generalizations about what “they” do.
A few years back, a friend was looking through pictures from a party I had gone to that weekend. He said “Who’s the white girl?” I told him she was a friend. “You have white friends? Like actual friends? I don’t hang out with white people.” After I finished laughing, I got to really thinking about that. That’s kinda deep to make a conscious decision to only be friends with “your own kind.” Clearly for him, it wasn’t just about bonding with people who were closest to him. He would literally decline offers to hang out with people who weren’t black.
What about you? Are your friends basically just like you or do you have a diverse set of friends? I’m talking about real friends here not people you barely know and fake smile with at awkward social functions. Is race/culture/family background something you consider when you’re getting to know someone who could become a friend?
