When We Try to Relate

I once had a friend who responded to everything by making it about herself.

I would start to share something I was going through.

Something hard.

Something confusing.

Something that mattered to me.

And before I could even finish my sentence, she would pivot.

Immediately.

“Well that reminds me of this time when I…”

And suddenly, the conversation was no longer mine.

At first, I tried to make sense of it.

Maybe she was trying to connect.

Maybe she was going through something too.

Maybe I wasn’t explaining myself clearly.

So I gave it space.

I slowed down.

I adjusted how I shared.

I tried again.

But the pattern didn’t change.

And over time, something shifted in me.

I stopped sharing.

Not because I didn’t have anything to say.

But because I no longer felt like there was space for it.

That experience stayed with me.

Because I started to recognize that same pattern in other spaces.

Especially in conversations about harm, oppression, and lived experience.

When someone Black or Brown shares something real.

Something painful.

Something specific to their lived experience.

And instead of making space for it, someone with my same skin tone (white) responds by trying to relate.

“Well that happened to me too.”

Or

“I’ve experienced that in a different way.”

Or

“I know exactly how you feel.”

On the surface, it can look like an attempt at empathy.

It can sound like an attempt at connection.

But something else entirely is happening.

The conversation shifts.

The focus moves.

The experience shared becomes smaller.

Less centered.

Less held.

Less heard.

I think, for many of us, the instinct to relate comes from a human place.

And in many relational and communal spaces, that can work.

It can build connections.

It can create closeness.

It can help people feel less alone.

But when we bring that same instinct into conversations about systemic harm, something gets lost.

Because we are not all bringing the same lived experience into the room.

And when white people try to relate to experiences of racism by pulling from our own hardships, we miss the point.

We reach for the closest thing we have felt.

Pain.

Rejection.

Even Injustice.

And we offer it back as if it is the same.

But it’s not.

Because systemic oppression is not just about individual pain.

It is about power.

Access.

Acceptability.

The grace we are given.

The assumptions the world makes about our lived intent.

And the tangible resources we are able to access.

It is about the way identity shapes how we are treated over and over again.

So when someone shares their lived experience and we immediately respond with our own, something happens.

We center ourselves.

The focus pulls away from the person speaking.

And in doing so, we erase the very thing they were trying to name.

I have done this.

More times than I can count.

Not because I wanted to dismiss someone.

But because I wanted to connect.

To attempt to empathize.

To show that I cared.

But that does not change the impact.

And the impact is this:

The person speaking, sharing, testifying, is no longer being witnessed.

Their experience becomes something to compare instead of something to honor.

And over time, people stop sharing.

Not because they don’t have anything to say.

Not because they don’t have anything to offer.

But because they have learned their stories won’t be held or embraced.

Won’t be heard as truth.

Won’t be fully understood.

Won’t be properly represented.

That is what erasure looks like in real time.

Not always loud.

Not always intentional.

But still harmful.

But still hurtful.

And still wrong.

And for those of us who are white and also carry other marginalized identities,

This.

Matters.

Even.

More.

Whether it is gender.

Queerness.

Disability.

We know what it feels like to want our experiences to be believed.

To be taken seriously.

To not be minimized or explained away.

To not be flatted into a dimension that squelches our truth.

But I am going to hold your hand when I say this.

Having proximity to marginalization does not give us access to someone else’s lived experience when we don’t share that specific identity.

It also does not excuse us from doing this work at all the intersections.

Our liberation is tied together.

If we do not make space for those most impacted, we will still miss it.

We will still replicate the same patterns.

We will still cause harm.

Because the system relies on us selling them out to save us.

This work is not about proving that we understand.

It is about making space for what we do not.

So the question becomes:

What does it look like to stay present instead?

To hear something without reaching for our own story?

To let someone’s experience exist without needing to measure it against our own?

Because sometimes, the most powerful form of connection is not saying “me too.”

It is choosing to listen.