Where I currently live, there is a decent sized community of people who immigrated from Jamaica. My friends who are black are almost all from this Jamaican group and will very directly tell you how you’re wrong if you call them african american instead of black.

One friend in particular is very good at telling me when I am wrong about her culture. Apparently, I absolutely ruined the red snapper dish I made by how I handled the eyeballs. She has shared this fact with her extended family. Her cousin now knows me as “the white girl who can’t cook snapper”. It’s all in good fun, food is the best way to bond across cultural lines, IMO, including when it involves a bit of teasing.

I grew up in a very white community. I didn’t have any black friends until I moved elsewhere for college. Idk, it doesn’t seem that difficult to me. I’m a woman and certainly don’t like men explaining my life experiences to me; so it’s quite natural for me to be empathetic to other groups by extension. I won’t say I’ve never made incorrect assumptions, but I try not to double down defensively when I’m informed that I am wrong.

Edit: ope, forgot about a high school friend who moved in, attended for a year, and moved away. She was such a good friend, I wish I had had the social skill wherewithall to keep in touch with her after she moved away. She identified as Nigerian american first, black second, never heard her call herself African american. I certainly learned some things about second-gen Nigerian american culture from her, and it was obvious it is not the same experience that every black person has.

Final note: who the hell is going to answer your question with a “yep, I have no African american friends but I hold strong opinions about their culture, like how they’re all into rap and basketball”?