PS: Yep.
HZ: I was talking about boundaries: I need to have very specific boundaries in my relationships with white people that might look different from my relationships within my community. And she was like, "Oh, I think the language of boundaries is, like, kind of imperial," and all of this other bullsh*t. But at the time I wasn't able to make that tie that I make in the article. I think her frustration with ideas like boundaries, or her frustration with the idea of therapy, was also about her not having access to Blackness and Black people's lives in ways that would be unhealthy. So if we can determine what's healthy for us, she obviously wouldn't be a part of it. And so she was doing all that she could to cast doubt on that idea: that being able to determine what's healthy for you is, in fact, healthy.
I think there are going to be a lot of people who struggle with that chapter for that reason: "Oh, you're saying that you get to have a specific boundary with your white friends?"
But yeah, I do think that's a very common thing with a lot of my relationships with white folks at least, and it definitely showed up in my relationship with Cloud a lot early on in our friendship, and I think it's just because we're not taught that Black people can have boundaries. I think there are going to be a lot of people who struggle with that chapter for that reason: "Oh, you're saying that you get to have a specific boundary with your white friends?" I mean, this even came up a lot in the editing process. But yeah, it's going to sound wild to people because we don't acknowledge how much harm that does, for one, and we don't acknowledge that there's another possible way of engaging with people that can still be very loving and caring. I think my relationship with Cloud now is very loving and caring, but it also looks very different.
