With the Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the nation and beyond, earlier this week white friends Casey Abrams and Eve Goldman convened over FaceTime and swapped anecdotes about talking to their parents as though they were battle stories.
“I’ve had the same argument about police abolition with my dad every night of this week,” said Casey. “I have spent hours explaining the systematic racism of policing, only for him to respond to absolutely nothing I said and ask some strangely specific question about how we’ll stop insider trading without law enforcement.”
But there was hardly a moment to reflect on one white parent’s insider trading fixation before Eve launched into her own epic tale of going head to head with her neoliberal mom.
“I can’t even get far into conversations about abolition with my mom,” said Eve. “She can’t wrap her head around a world without prisons. Plus, she’s in love with Cuomo. Like, sexually and romantically.”
While the grisly exchange went on for over an hour, it remains unclear what either white friend gets from the racist-parent-one-up besides frustrated.
“It’s mostly a space to vent with a weird slightly competitive dynamic,” says white behavior expert, Sydney Konak. “Primarily, they just want some external acknowledgment of the work they are putting in to try and make their parents slightly less racist, and at least they know enough to not seek that elsewhere.”
“There’s not enough information to know if these arguments are having a positive effect on literally anything,” adds Sydney. “But at least these white friends will keep having them and reporting back to each other after.”
At press time, Casey was calling Eve to give her live updates on a Facebook debate that was unfolding with her aunt.
