My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love and Forgiveness

by Patricia Raybon

God help me. I stopped hating white people on purpose about a year ago.   With this brave confession opening her book's Prologue, award-winning African American author Patricia Raybon invites readers to join her courageous personal journey to stop hating others by first learning to love God and also herself.Winner of the Christopher Award and a Books for a Better Life Award."A powerful tale of hard-win racial healing." -- Weekend Edition, National Public Radio"An unusual account of conscious change." -- Kirkus Reviews."Glorious...Raybon can tell a story to be sure." -- Publishers Weekly.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Race, African American, Biography, Book Club, Autobiography

237 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

A newspaper journalist right out of the gate, Patricia turned to writing historical mystery novels during the pandemic and hasn't looked back. Her first fiction is the award-winning Annalee Spain Mystery series whose debut, “All That Is Secret,” won a Christy Award for First Novel. The series' second installment, “Double the Lies,” won the Christianity Today Book Award for Fiction. The third in the series, “Truth Be Told,” was a New York Times' pick among "4 Great Fictional Detectives."

“...[M]ystery novels that incorporate religion in a significant way aren’t all that common. Thankfully, the inspiring Patricia Raybon, a veteran nonfiction writer and novelist, has been threading the needle in just the right way with her Annalee Spain series, set in 1920s Denver.” (Sarah Weinman, New York Times).

"It's something special," says NBA star Steph Curry about the Annalee story. Others agree. "Brava, Patricia. It is captivating." (Jerry B. Jenkins) "Rich with romance and spiritual searching." (Sujata Massey) "A fast-moving mystery.” (Publishers Weekly) “Not only a good mystery, but a realistic insight into the African American experience in the 1920s in the West.” (Rhys Bowen)

Patricia cut her writing teeth in high-pressure newsrooms and won multiple awards for feature writing during her years at The Denver Post and later at the Scripps Howard Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Mid-career she taught print journalism for 15 years to bright graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Now writing full-time, she is a regular contributor at Our Daily Bread and, in addition to writing historical mysteries, is author of two notable memoirs, “My First White Friend,” a winner of the Christopher Award and a Books for a Better Life Award, and “I Told the Mountain to Move: Learning to Pray So Things Change,” a Book of the Year finalist in Christianity Today’s Book Awards. Patricia was also inducted into the Colorado Authors' Hall of Fame.

A lifelong Colorado resident, Patricia is mom to two grown daughters, a “Grammy” to five grandchildren, mother-in-law to one “son,” and the wife of 48 years to her husband Dan Raybon, a retired educator. Patricia and Dan share a passion for movies, popcorn, college hoops, and historical dramas and mysteries on Masterpiece on PBS.

Join her on the journey at her Reader’s Circle at patriciaraybon.com and get her free prayer download, “The Busy Person’s Guide to Hearing God.”

Reviews

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up on the spur of the moment - the title caught my eye. Once I got started reading, I was very glad I gave into the impulse, although I didn't really need another book.

I found Patricia Raybon to be amazingly honest in her examination of race relations. She looks at her family, her environment and most thoroughly Raybon looks at herself.

I have not had the courage to examine myself as Raybon does. What she sees is that not just white folk are responsible for how she feels about blacks and whites. And no one but Raybon herself can decide how she should see herself in the present and in the future.

I would like to know how others see this book. Raybon seems willing to work on forgiveness and try to move forward. Is that really possible and did Raybon actually do it?

I may need to read this again.

[Ellison Rhea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of memoir-style musings and narratives beautifully conveys the author's personal journey toward racial healing and reconciliation, providing a safe but honest reflection space both to apprehensive first-timers and scarred veterans on both 'sides' of the race-relations dialogue.

I've often heard that being White means not having to think about race, but lately I've realized the need to understand what I as a White woman might mean to other people. While I was probably a secondary audience for this book, the title (and, I would soon learn, the author's open and vulnerable writing style) generously invited me in to do that. Earlier this summer I was blessed to read Dr. Joy DeGruy's illuminating text, Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, which took a long, necessary look at intraracial healing; this text followed up with interracial healing and allowed me to ask the right questions about my place in that journey.

Patricia Raybon's writing is lovely-- not because it is sentimental (it dips that way only occasionally), but because it is genuinely artistic and beautiful-- sometimes even melodic. She is sincere in her content, speaking mostly out of her abundant personal experience though it is evident that she has done amazing amounts of research. This makes the book a quick and satisfying weekend read, though it of course is not comprehensive and leaves the reader ready to learn more. To the reader who is more accustomed to 'clean' narratives or essay-style, three-point dissertations, Raybon's topical shifts may seem arbitrary or hard to follow. But as a reader of great 'musers' like Merton (whom she cites as an influence), I found it delightfully adventurous to follow her journey as it developed organically, back and forth through time and through writing styles.

Some good quotes:

"And if that was true-- if white people were as unremarkable as me; if they weren't any more or less than I was-- then my charge was clear: I could not walk around anymore distracted by what 'white people' did or said or sanctioned or tolerated from people who look like me." (7)

"And (I had to) forgive people who don't think they need forgiving, who'll censure me for daring to believe that I have the power to forgive them-- and that they need to be absolved." (10)

"Love that big transcends itself. It certainly transcends race. It doesn't trivialize race; it rewrites its context." (12)

"Forgiveness just isn't a one-time thing. It's a God thing. And God, as I understand Her, has a long arm and a heart for mercy. God, as I see Him, isn't so stingy as to hold back a second chance." (67)

"I finally grasped what the quiet Negro pickets held in Denver that Saturday, marching down the street, quietly stepping. Moving up to glory. Marching to redemption. Such beautiful quiet people, showing me all along what I have always really owned: Power." (113)

"I am naive enough, perhaps, to believe that my presence in the classroom, if nothing else, is a direct challenge to the stereotypical attitudes that some of [my white students] still hold. But it turns out that they challenge my own stereotypical attitudes. so, in the end, all of us learn something from each other. My being here forces us each to cross a bridge and stretch. That is why I teach white students." (208)

Raybon, Patricia. My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love, and Forgiveness. New York: Penguin Books, 1996.

[Susy Flory · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't stop reading Patricia Raybon's book, My First White Friend. She grew up in an era where she still encountered drinking fountains and entrances for whites only (on a family trip to the south) and early in her life experienced alienation and isolation because of the color of her skin. Story by story, memory by memory, Raybon creates a world where girls compare the color of their arms (lightest girl wins) and where she was taught to work harder than everyone else and never, ever show her anger (or even acknowledge it). My favorite chapter was Chapter 12, "The Affirmation," and I can't wait to go back and read it again (I don't want to spoil it for you). This is a triumphant story leavened with honesty, wisdom and grace, ending on a high point of self-acceptance and peace. This one is staying on my shelf.

[Jonny Bowman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED IT WAS SO GOOD BEST BOOK IVE EVER READ

[LaDawn Fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Painfully honest. What a wonderful explanation of how I feel in this black skin of mine sometimes. This is a wonderfully, enganging read.

[Emeshea · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honest and heartfelt examination of race through personal experience. A must read! A large focus is on the process of forgiveness, a topic which cannot be exhausted.

[Ann Spangler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific memoir. I loved the honesty and courage of this story.

[Michelle]

A very heartfelt book published in the mid-nineties about, among other things, the author's relationship to white people, and the power of forgiveness. Very thought-provoking. Because it was published in the 90s, and the world keeps turning, I am left wondering how these concepts have evolved. I'm hesitant to claim I know where she stands now. Because I'm a white woman, I'm also hesitant to go what feels like a very self-serving route of suggesting that white people should be trusted or forgiven. That's not my place. I feel my place was to read the book, and take in the words. I'm glad I read this.

I discovered this book on Thriftbooks while nosing around for reviews of a mystery book by the author, All That Is Secret, which I hope to read in 2022. I'm also intrigued by Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Path to Peace

[Thomas DeWolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard about this book when I was on the journey with my nine cousins that resulted in my own book, Inheriting the Trade, and the film Traces of the Trade. It's about a woman of color who made the choice to stop hating white people. Not only was this a daring choice for her to make, writing this memoir about it bared her soul (which is a frightening act) and opened this white man's eyes to the possibility that there was a lot I may have been missing in my relationships with people of color. I could not put this book down. The subtitle is "Confessions on Race, Love, and Forgiveness." This is an incredibly honest and hopeful book and I'm blessed to have read it. My blessings were multiplied when I had the good fortune to meet Patricia Raybon. She's the genuine article. Risky, brave, honest, and so very human... just like her book.

[Heather Otieno · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has really deep and well articulated reflections on race in America, which is a hard topic to pin down. I love her choice to work through anger and forgive. Even though I know it happens, I was shocked at her stories of really bitter hate mail and hurtful comments and amazed at how she could even function under that weight. Her writing style is more meditative and circling than I usually prefer, but worth it for the profound and brave story she tells. I can hardly believe at the end of it all she can come out in vulnerability and choose forgiveness. But she explains really well the trap if being self righteously angry and how she doesn't want to be stuck there. Lots to think about, really moving.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raybon is a Denver native, so I read an interview with her as a "local author" when this book was published. Denver has a very small African-American population and Raybon grew up in the bosom of a loving family and neighborhood. THEN her family moved to the lily-white suburbs. She is an excellent writer and skillfully outlines her journey from having a deep-seated hatred of whites to learning forgiveness and creating a new sense of racial awareness for herself. It is compelling read and will make you re-evaluate your views about race in America and the healing power of forgiveness in other areas of life as well.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflections on racial interactions from a middle-class African-American woman who grew up as one of very few black children in Colorado (born in the 50s).

Acknowledges how HARD forgiveness is and how it is more a journey than something instantaneous.

[Jenae · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really did not like this book ... The tone and attitude the author conveys is tough to swallow and makes it unenjoyable. I just kept feeling a sense of reverse discrimination throughout her story. It's a shame she couldn't have taken a less aggressive approach, but I guess that's how she felt.

[Lora Shouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another of those books that everybody should read. Although it is primarily about forgiveness in a racial context, there is a lot here that anybody could learn from about forgiving. And the stories are interesting too - this is not a boring book!

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is extremely thought-provoking!

[Kay Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed this book in depth on my blog a http://www.lkayjohnson.blogspot.com.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I believe this book had a powerful message, I believe that it was lost in many sidebar discussions, observations, and personal explorations. I did not care for the author's writing style.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her writing style is beautiful, amazingly poetic and visual. Occasionally it was difficult to empathize with her but most definitely worth reading.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many many good points, although they are at times lost in the confusion due to the literary structure of this book.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Achingly beautiful and informative, too. Love you Patricia Raybon

[Belton Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read on racial reconciliation. Raybon's fluid writing tells a poignant story in vignettes as she grapples with growing up as a black girl in white America. This book has been an experience I wanted to savor and so I purposely crawled through the last chapters, enjoying the excursion slowly and from the bottom up.

By sharing her personal stories, she opens up new insights and wounds (some only partially healed) to those of us who haven't had to confront such ugly realities. "Anger" is respectable agency these days, but Raybon addresses the underlying issues of hate and the fallibility of all mankind. The prologue has a more contemporary tone brushed with much angst, yet the rest of the book is gentle though firm, soft though deep, and loving while discerning. The title teases even though I've finished the book. At the risk of spoilers, is it Jesus as depicted in pictures in the 1950s? Is it her second daughter? Is it the neighborhood junior high girl who was friendly? Or, is it the awareness and acceptance of differences?

I liked her comparisons to Baldwin thereby bridging the genders as we grope for racial reconciliation. We will always be short this side of heaven, but we still need to push closer. Racial reconciliation, like forgiveness and even loving, is a process. A hard fact as we so often want permanent solutions, easily and right now!

Raybon reminds us that our job, our calling, is to awake with new hope everyday and use our daily "living" to press on.

[Amy Pye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyrical, poetic, sometimes gently meandering. A deep dive into the life of an African-American woman who grew up in 50s America, in a house in Colorado that her father had to fight to buy, as the understanding was that it was reserved for white people. Her hatred of white people, because of the daily racism she encountered, poisoned her from the inside out. To be free, she realized, she had to forgive.

Her images will stay with me - her daddy, tall and strong and fighting back his childhood pain in Mississippi. Her lunchtime experiences of sticky peaches being thrown at her by mocking white boys. Being told, at the local swimming pool, by her friends that she was dark - with the implication that she was therefore wanting. As an adult, a seasoned journalist, teaching in a white university and feeling an imposter, having to justify her qualifications to nineteen year olds.

One to read slowly with a cup of something hot and comforting as she jars some out of complacency and gives others a voice.

[Lora · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book! Will you? I don’t know. Because for me, the fact that it was written in the 90’s made it both relatable and comparable. I appreciate the author’s honest and detailed sharing of her perspective, thoughts, discoveries, and the whole story based background of how she came to be herself.

This book came to me as part of an anti-racism pack of 4 from a used book selling service, RecycleReadRepeat. I didn’t pick the books. And how unlikely is it that I would have picked an older book I’d never heard of? An accidental blessing. I will lend this book, and who knows if it will ever come back? Hey future me, you may want to buy another copy and read this again!

[Elizabeth Gibbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very hard book to read due to the subject matter. Someone was talking about the book and I was curious so I borrowed it, but twice during the preface alone I wanted to quit reading because there was so much hatred coming at me as a white woman. I kept going though. Halfway through, it got easier to read, but it was still difficult all the way through. I hear what she was saying and some things from the past fell into place. I’m extremely sad that our country has used the color of skin to create injustice and caused harm to so many. I’m sad that there’s no way to go back and fix the past for everyone involved. There is a positive ending to the book, and for that I’m thankful.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book, cannot be judged by the cover (or title). I appreciated learning about Raybon's experience as a black child growing up in urban, then suburban Denver in the 50s and 60s. The book is a combination of narrative, reflection and confession as she grapples with how she ended up hating white people and how she slowly changed her perspective and let down her guard. The book isn't linear, and isn't about forging a friendship with a white person - knowing this ahead of time may help you to enjoy it. I read it with my memoir club and most people loved it.

[CJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for a second time and it's just as good as I remembered it being. Despite being 25 years old this year, it is startlingly relevant and something I would recommend (and have) to anyone wanting to read more about racial issues. Especially poignant for me as a Christian living in Colorado because of how much the book focuses on faith and the experiences of Black people living in this state, but I think it would have value for anyone.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This, for me, was a stunning collection of essays and memories (some written almost stream of consciousness) primarily about race and forgiveness. Family, history, hate, pride, faith. Extremely personal. Not every chapter landed for me but the overall collection felt like a gift. I am a white mother of an adopted Black son so I am grateful for these honest glimpses into the author’s experiences wrestling with being Black in America.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is interesting to read an "older" book about race relations in light of the current cultural climate. I started by reading a different book by this author, written much later in her life, so it was interesting to read these thoughts from her earlier self. I'm not sure what I learned as much as I had hoped, but it is a good thing for me to think about all the same.

[Michelle Ule · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patricia Raybon wrote this insightful, wise, revealing memoir many years ago but it is just as relevant today as when it was published.

I so appreciated her searing honesty as she described being Black in America in ways I'd not considered before.

It's a powerful book from a lovely smart woman I had the privilege to meet once.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend this book to anyone and everyone. This really opens your eyes to thing that as a white person I never thought about until now. It's beautifully written, painfully honest and it's core a book about forgiving a world that hasn't asked to be forgiven.