Black Friend: Essays - Ziwe

I was put on to Ziwe years ago but didn't realize until a few months ago that she was exactly what I've needed.

Forget watching her hilarious interviews with celebrities and well known figures where she asks the most diabolical questions and zoom into the pink book, Black Friend: Essays that you can see standing up on the shelf behind her in her videos.

Once I caught a glimpse of it—I ordered it as quickly as I could, and I am so glad I did.

Throughout the entirety of the book, I could hear not only her voice coming off the pages but the faces she was making behind each sentence written. Not only that, but as a Black woman, it wasn't hard to make those same faces—the ones we silently make at each other in most spaces when we catch on to the same BS. It was like someone else was in my mind, thinking the same things and we could both laugh at this reality of...realization.

It was exactly how I expected it to be.

There is such a sense of awkwardness related to everyday interactions as a Black woman.

Growing up in predominantly white neighborhood and cities, it's typical to see performative allyship and to have to find the humor in order to survive.

Ziwe pulled all of this together in one book, saying things Black women think but don't share except with each other.

One of my favorite essay's was "How Many Black Friends Do You Have?"

In it, Ziwe writes, "There is no right answer to the question "How many black friends do you have?" The premise of the question is a trap. As soon as you start to answer, more challenging questions arise. Why do you count your black friends? Do they know that you refer to them as your black friends? Why is the number of black friends you claim so low? Why is it so high? Are those black friends here with us right now? Are you prepared for a FOIA request to verify the validity of these black friendships?" (Ziwe, 51)

This question also appears throughout her interviews, and the answers are almost always the same: "Maybe four or five."

It's always hilarious to me the way Ziwe thinks things out. Anytime she asks this question in an interview, you can see the person across from her pause with this stare of "is she really asking me this?"

This question in particular is leading the interviewee to understand that Ziwe is essentially asking them to quantify something that really doesn't function like a statistic. The question itself is supposed to come off as something rather simple, that should have some sense of a simple answer. The reality of it is, it forces the person answering to quickly, on a whim, examine how they categorize relationships, race, and even what they think "counts" as proximity or connection.

We laugh at not only the interviewees reaction, but how Ziwe asks it. Not only are we aware there's no correct answer or that the question is essentially a joke, but there's a recognition behind the answers and how they tend to reveal how performative and uncertain people are when they're talking about race at all.

Another essay from the book that I had to just laugh and laugh at was "Airbnb."

These laughs ranged from a level of discomfort, recognition, nervousness and, of course, Ziwe's humor.

In this essay, she goes into a memory of staying at an Airbnb in a more wilderness-like region. She had been there for a while and hiked the area often, except this time she goes out on her own. It wasn't long before a man pulled up beside her—alarming in itself—and rolled down his window, asking her what she was doing...as if someone walking along side a road in the woods minding their business could be highly suspicious. After ignoring his initial question, he asked who she was and why she was there.

Ziwe didn't respond to any of the questions when he then asked if she was staying at the Airbnb (why are we asking a woman alone so many questions?) and then followed up with saying he owned the property—making it seem like he owned the property. When she mentioned his Airbnb was beautiful, he told her it wasn't his but made sure to follow that up with "so you are staying at the Airbnb."

Then he continued asking her more questions and let her know she was walking on the wrong side of the road.

"You have to understand what you're doing is a little bit strange." (Ziwe, 20)

"Mind you, what I was "doing" was "walking in the woods" in a "black top hat." I was not committing an illegal act; I was one foot from the public road, and we were on three hundred acres of secluded forest, The only person who cared, the only person who knew I was there, was this man who made it his civic duty to make sure I did not steal the woods (?!). I am not sure what he was afraid of, but as is usually the case, his fear was now my black-ass problem." (Ziwe, 20)

Boldly enough, Ziwe told him how weird it was for a white man to be talking to her alone in the woods. Mind you, this man's wife was sitting in the passenger seat throughout the entiredy of the interaction.

"Don't worry about us, we have a black friend in the back." (Ziwe, 21)

The couple then rolled down their window to share that they had a black child in their backseat before they ultimately drove away.

Even typing out a short telling of the essay gives me goosebumps, because what was that?? Not only was the interaction bizarre in itself, but the couple mentioned their names and that they knew the owner of the Airbnb. When Ziwe left, she mentioned the names of the couple, to which the Airbnb apologized for the strange interaction and stated he had no idea who they were.

The interaction reminds the reader that Black existence seems to always find itself under some sort of surveillance and that it requires some type of justification. It requires answering to someone or something without a real reason.

"We have a Black friend in the back"—is "we are not racist because we can produce evidence of proximity to Blackness" wrapped up in a bow.

The questions of her legitimacy, her purpose to simply exist in the space, just circles back to something Ziwe returns to throughout the entirety of the book: the idea that Blackness is often treated as something that must be "accounted for" in order to be accepted. That being the Black friend truly feels like this at times, more so than not.

Ziwe's Black Friend: Essay's will have you laughing out loud on just about every page, but it also causes you to take a pause—especially as a Black woman, a Black friend—because these types of scenarios have happened to each and every one of us.

What is life like for the Black friend? Ziwe lays it out perfectly. I absolutely recommend this read to any and everyone, you will not regret it.

The book leaves you wondering: is the Black friend ever just a friend?

Citation:

Ziwe. Black Friend: Essays. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2024.