Page 96 - White Lives The Interplay of 'Race', Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

Seeing, talking, living ‘race’ 89
Emily had admitted her own prejudice, describing it as ‘horrible’ (al-
though perhaps inevitable and justified). But she also stressed how she had
had black friends. Black women do not fit so neatly into this schema of the
violent black man and, indeed, were hardly mentioned by any interviewees.
But Emily had a narrative of the loss of a friendship with a ‘wonderful’ black
friend. However, her status as truly black appeared to be undermined in
Emily’s mind because ‘actually, she ended up marrying a white man’.
Madeleine was someone who, as we saw above, had thought extensively
about issues around ‘race’ and had a fairly racially mixed social life, including
long-term relationships with black and Asian men. However, she explained
in the following extract how the idea of blackness as male and threatening
persists and can be summoned up by particular incidents. Unless she was in
a ‘stage’ of her life where she has friendships with black people, this black
‘other’ became dominant in her imagination and responses to events:

Madeleine: I don’t know if this happens for other people. Kind of the way I
think about issues kind of goes up and down through my life. Do
you know what I mean? It depends about the people that I’m in
contact with. And, you know, if I have . . . black women friends
that I get on really well with, then I will tend to feel more open
towards black women. And if I am in that stage of my life where
I don’t have any black friends, then I will tend to feel, you know
they’re different, they’re. And I had a, in January, this January,
it was just the most awful month. There was an armed robbery
round the corner [laugh] which was a huge black guy and there
was a bloke outside who was just kicking his kids so badly, he
was a huge black guy. And I didn’t feel like I could intervene,
do you know what I mean? But I came home and phoned the
police, and thought [in barely audible fearful voice] ‘don’t let
him know it’s me’. You know, and when you have kind of things
like that happen to you in a row, then you start thinking ‘I can’t
bear to live in this area, because it’s just, I need to go and live
where there’s more white people’. And I actually went to live
with my mum for a bit. I packed everything up and went to stay
with my mum.
BB: after this incident?
Madeleine: after this incident. [. . .] and just couldn’t stand it [laugh].
They’re all so old and white and middle class and it was just
hideous. You know so it does, that’s what you were saying about
it’s about how people feel at the time, isn’t it. And if you’ve
had bad experiences then. And at the end of the day, it’s about
people isn’t it? The quality of your contacts with people that
kind of informs your views about race and class.
(Interview 44)