Networking event invites white people to ‘Come Meet a Black Person’

A networking group in Lawrenceville, Georgia, is hosting an event called “Come Meet a Black Person.”

Urban Mediamakers, a group for media professionals, said in their announcement that the event was meant to address the “divisive and racist atmosphere of this country” and challenge stereotypes.

“Many white people want to begin to cultivate relationships with black people but don’t know how to and this is an opportunity for them to feel comfortable,” the group’s president, Cheryle Moses, told The Washington Post. “The only way to change the divisiveness that’s going on is to be one-on-one with people. Policy won’t really change things, but forming relationships will.”

According to Moses, the idea came from a 2013 Public Religion Research Institute study showing that 75 percent of white people don’t have friends who aren’t white.

That same study showed that a majority of white people have friend groups that are overwhelmingly white, with a majority of Black people having friend groups that are, similarly, overwhelmingly Black.

With that in mind, Moses hopes the event will allow people to bridge that divide and make friends so that people can understand each other better.

While some people expressed support for the idea of coming together at the event, others blasted it as a “zoo” mentality. Some even compared it to the horror movie Get Out.

You can check out some of Twitter’s best reactions below.