It is said this is not a defense against racism.
I reject that. In most cases, if you have true friends of other races, you're not racist. And don't let anyone tell you differently.
For a certain set, there IS no defense against racism. You are racist. You are racist even if you don't THINK you're racist. You are racist even if you are white and married a black man and freely chose to make your children with this man. For that set, you are white and racist and there is no escaping it.
Reject this garbage.
If you TRULY have friendships with people of different races and beliefs, than what better evidence is there for you being what Leftists used to value: tolerant, diverse and loving? If you share their struggles and listen to their stories and invite them into your homes and share their lives and seek to understand them, as friends do, and you love and value them as complete individuals, including their race, how can you possibly be racist?
But of course that's not good enough now. If you have friendships with people of different values and beliefs, you must also be Down For Their Struggle. And maybe not just THEIR struggle, meaning them as individuals, but every race struggle the Powers That Be want to impose on them. IOW, you are not just you and your friend is not just your friend. But you are White and your friend is Black and that must be overlaid with all the meaning THEY want to lay on it.
Check your heart. And if it doesn't describe you, reject it. Then maybe we can finally move forward.
Most people live their lives as individuals not races.
That said, tensions do exist between cultures--tensions which can muddy otherwise common, daily, expected and healthy social relationships with professional, random and/or close to home interracial interactions.
Funny thing, my neighborhood--less than one mile off a major military installation--is majority black. Not long after moving in I came home early from work one day, parked and went inside our house. Moments later a knock. I opened the door to three black children aged ten or so. They had seen me pull up and wanted help collecting an early 2000's 52" television from the dumpster down the street so they could use the monster to build a robot.
After a moment of hesitation I followed them in my truck, loaded up the TV and drove it and them back to their place. Their Grandma held the door as I carried the thing inside, like a mostly white guy lugging a massive TV set into her home midday was nothing out of the ordinary. Afterward she thanked me for accommodating the boys' imagination. We sat down to a glass of sun brewed iced tea.
Next time I got off work early that summer the boys were waiting around our front porch. They wanted me to take them to the community pool, even offered me few bucks to do it. But my fiancé and their grandmother later agreed that was going to far . . . I wouldn't have stood a chance. We've been friends with the grandmother ever since. Sure, there are tensions but people have names and faces and even personalities. Why see each other as groups of weirdos?
Of course, now when I get home early during the summer I drive up to the corner before our street and peek around it to see who is waiting for me and whether or not I need to stealth in through neighbors' backyards. The pool is open for another couple of weeks.