“Your Black Friend”: An Animated Short

Written and narrated by Ben Passmore, and animated by Krystal Downs & Alex Krokus of Doggo; this animated short highlights the wounding results of silence as complicity.

In Passmore’s own words:

https://x.com/DAYGLOAYHOLE/status/955956935924305921

https://x.com/DAYGLOAYHOLE/status/955957391136313344

https://x.com/DAYGLOAYHOLE/status/955958040401993729

https://x.com/DAYGLOAYHOLE/status/955958833054175232

Not acting out of fear of making things awkward is but one of the routes white people can take on the path to avoiding responsibility for their participation in racism. At whose expense is this false sense of equilibrium maintained?

What do you think? For me, it brought up reminders of the common occurrence of being mistaken for another Black person, and the potentially lethal consequences of that.

Now that this comic is out, it has me thinking of how other narratives like a “Your  Black  Woman Friend”, or “Your Queer Black Friend” or Your Black Undocumented Friend”, among others would be similar, or different to this one for both in-group and out-group perspectives.

Does the experience in the video sound familiar to you as a POC? Have you known, or been the barista as a white person?

Ubuntu,

From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones

Subscribe to Notes from an Aspiring Humanitarian

Enter your email and click subscribe to receive new notes when I share them.

Email Address

Subscribe