Dear White Woman, Please Come Home: Hand Me Your Bias, and I'll Show You Our Connection

By Kimberlee Yolanda Williams and Debby Irving

Dear White Woman, Please Come Home is Kimberlee Yolanda Williams' invitation to white women longing for authentic friendship with Black and brown women, the kind of friendship with no place for secrets, the kind of relationship where truth-telling is welcome, even when it hurts.

The idea for the book w

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elephant Room Press
• Release date: Feb 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9780991331338

Book preview

1

From My Heart to Your Hands

Dear White Woman,

I think you’re out there looking for me. I know I’m looking for you. I tried to deny it for a long time. It just hurt too much to look and look for you and feel like you couldn’t see me, like you looked right through me.

That workshop is where it all changed. Sitting in a session designed for Black women and white women to connect, communicate, and heal generations of brokenness, distrust, and unforgiveness, I heard this phrase repeatedly from every white woman who spoke: I didn’t know.  I must admit that by the third time I heard a white woman say she didn’t know how Black women felt, I started to doubt the level of honesty in the room. After the workshop, I went home questioning how they could possibly know if we as women of color had been trained to withhold the truth from them—if the real, raw, unfiltered truth was something we had been taught not to share for fear of fragility, retaliation, being ostracized, etc. It was then that I decided I would write this book, and in it, to tell the truth.

This book is written on behalf of the women of color in my family, my circle of friends, my colleagues, and the women of color existing throughout communities all over this country and the world. Now, please know that Black and brown people are not a monolith, so I do not speak for all of us. And, while I am unable to promise that all of us will agree with the words written here, I can tell you that I have met way too many women who do feel this way. These women’s stories have inspired this book, and their voices are included in my quest for racial healing.

While many of my sistas* have given up on finding you, I have not. I continue to search for you each day and to look for signs of your return. I truly believe that I will find you, and we will reconnect like the sisters we were meant to be. I dream of seeing you, embracing you, and laughing or crying at all that we’ve missed since we were separated. 

Now, a little about my why. This is what keeps me going; it’s the belief that hundreds of years of silence, disrespect, and disconnection were part of a system handed to us instead of one that we created. We have participated in and allowed this separation in order to survive, but I’m not sure it’s what either of us ever really wanted. We learned to suppress the desire to connect beyond the borders established for us. We learned to turn away from each other when our eyes met. You even learned to ignore my pain, no matter how great. But that’s not you, sis. I have to believe that. That’s why I look forward to the day when we will embrace one another. 

While I know that the sister bond is one that can be filled with ups and downs and may even feel like a new concept to you, I still believe in it. I still believe in you. I still believe in us.

Now listen. My letters may make you laugh, cry, and even question your sanity, but they will consistently fill you with truth and love. They come from my soul and have landed in your hands because you are also searching for me. 

Missing you,

Your sista

P.S. With the distance between us, you may have forgotten our native tongue and be confused with some of the language used in this book. To make things easier for you, I have defined some of these words at the end of each letter starting with the word sista.

*Sista – a term used among Black women for Black women. These letters are written by a Black woman on behalf of women of color to white women, our sisters. Please don’t ever refer to yourself as a sista. This title refers to a deep connection that in my experience most white women don’t feel for one another—a soul-level connection. If you are questioning what that means or feels like, you probably don’t experience it. Because the smile I’m wearing right now as I write this just thinking about the bond I share with all of my sistas is not something that can be put into words.

Even if a Black woman gifts you this term, tread softly when trying to use it around other Black women. Your closeness with a select few sistas does not instinctively transfer to fondness from all of us. Just my opinion, though.

2

Let's Clear This Up

Dear White Woman,

Before I share the long journey of this search with you, I just want to clear some things up. 

First, no matter how far-fetched these stories seem, they are all grounded in truth and told through the lens of imaginative nonfiction. So when you get to a place of doubt, come back to this letter, and reread these words. 

This next point must be written here because I fear that your whiteness will prevent you from receiving these messages and from truly hearing my heart’s call for your return. One of the major tenets of white culture is to approach everything from a head-space instead of a heart-space. So I can already see some of you questioning the idea or nature of this sister relationship. Was this person actually taken? Is this person me?  Is this your real sister?  Is she your half sibling?  And so on and so forth down the rabbit hole. 

Both of my parents are African American and did not birth, foster, or adopt any white children. The relationship of sisterhood between us is one that Black women innately share. Walking down a sidewalk, a comment like, Nice dress, Sis is completely normal. It’s to say I see you, and I’m here for you if you should ever need me. I am your protector, your supporter, and your friend on our best day. On our worst day, I am your fiercest competitor and will stop at nothing to destroy you if we are fighting for a seat at the table where they only have room for one of us. I am all of these things and none of them on any given day. I am your sista.

So, I want you to dig deep and to suspend your attachment to practicality and realism and to come with me on this fluid and non-linear journey of the heart.

With love, 

Your sista

3

It's Your Face on the Milk Carton

Dear White Woman,

I still remember the day you were taken away from us. I remember it like it was yesterday. When I think of it, I tear up, and I long to see you, to hold you, to laugh with you, and to cry with you. I want to hear every detail of what happened that day. I’d like to know who it was that convinced you that we weren’t family. Who took you? Who changed you? Who erased your memory of who I am in your life? Who taught you to see me the way you do? To speak to me in such strange ways? To look down on the way we lived? Who convinced you that we were competition instead of compassion, separation instead of support, foe instead of friend? Who filled your heart with these