Member-only story
Internet Time Machine
How I Got Kicked Out of a Facebook Group for Reverse Racism
Apparently, there are some things you still can’t say in a mixed-race Facebook space
This story is part of the Internet Time Machine, a collection about life online in the 2010s.
Prelude
It was our mistake, really. I mean, what the heck were we thinking opening up to white women, sharing our lived experiences all willy-nilly in a mixed-race Facebook space? Making ourselves all vulnerable and shit. Nope, we shoulda done kept all that mess to ourselves.
Act I: In which I bring up race
It all started when I posted about how my corner of Istanbul’s expat community was starting to feel like a bubble of privilege and, well, whiteness. Almost everyone I interacted with on a regular basis was North American and white. And I just didn’t feel like I could talk to them about how vendors yelled “Michelle Obama” or “Venus Williams” at me to get my attention at the Spice Bazaar, or about that time I’m pretty sure a taxi driver tried to surreptitiously take a picture of me on his smartphone. He did not seem suspicious of me; I think he wanted to document that he had a real live black woman in his taxi.
