We'd been friends for decades. A White guy. We'd had our spats about race.
I tried to have conversations with him. He had no interest.
Finally I realized that his unwillingness to engage in conversations about race was as much a part of his racism as his racist assumptions and stereotyping of Black people.
Since he wouldn't converse with me, I wrote him an email saying we could no longer be friends if he was not willing to have the conversations.
Two months. Nothing.
Then he emailed me back. Part of his response, and the gist of his argument, was this:
"If you and I met the same ten Black people, I guarantee every one of them would want to be friends with me more than with you."
Like millions of White people, he seemed to be saying that if you were "nice" and "friendly" you couldn't be racist. And that his hypothetically superior number of friendships with hypothetical Black people somehow erased all the racist things he said and thought and did.
As if his openly shared racist views didn't contradict his supposed affinity and camaraderie with theoretical Black people.
As if that had anything to do with anything.
We're no longer friends. Which was an easy decision.
What's not so easy is getting through to the tens of millions of other White folks who think similarly.