I know a few white people that go out of their way to befriend and socialize with people of other races solely because they are another race, and not because they believe having diverse friends is good, but because of “white guilt” and pity for them.
I have friends of varying race, sex, sexual orientation, socioeconomic backgrounds, political backgrounds etc., but they are my friends because we crossed paths along the way and we get along. I have never sought out social contact with someone because I felt that I needed to befriend someone different from me, and especially not because I was doing them a service by sharing my whiteness with them.
Do they tell you this is their motivation, or are you making assumptions. I don’t know anyone who would consciously do what you think these people are doing.
I don’t see anything wrong with being attracted to people who challenge you and make you think and expose you to new things. You don’t have to make your friends resemble the United Nations to achieve this, but it probably is true that people who have a diverse set of friends do get benefits that they wouldn’t routinely get from a less diverse set.
I’m also curious how you would know the motivations of these white people. I guess I can imagine someone saying something like, “I try to make friends with people who are different from me”–a sentiment which is perfectly reasonable, IMHO. But I can’t imagine someone saying, “Yeah, that’s my black friend over there. I only like her because she’s black.”
She said it was because we should go out of our way to make minorities feel more welcome. I asked her if she always used race as a factor when deciding who she wanted to be friends with, and she said definitely.
…but did you ask her if she did this out of white guilt? Did you ask her if she felt pity for them? Because the answer she has given doesn’t imply either pity or guilt.
I spent over 30 years hiring mechanics for high paying mechanic jobs. I would go out of my way to hire a qualified black worker becuase I felt his white counterpart stould a better chance of landing an equal job somewhere else. It may not have been fair but I felt it was the right thing to do. About 25% of our mechanics were black.
So in my friend’s situation, I don’t know if this play into it or not, but are you trying to say that friending someone because of their color makes sense because other white people stand a better chance of making friends elsewhere? If that’s not what you’re saying, I’m not even sure how your anecdote is relevant to the discussion.