My friend sent me a link to racewire for a post on this topic.
Adrienne Maree Brown asks:
Do any of y’all maintain relationships where one person, who has more privilege and is white, regularly says things that are remarkably ignorant? But you know they ‘mean well’?
What do you do about that? I want the Racewire readers to offer up wisdom from a perspective of awareness…do you keep such people in your life?
I sat over drinks with some friends Sunday night, we all went to college together, and they were talking about a few white folks we went to school with who have uttered an unusually high number of offensive things recently.
Now me personally, I don’t stay close to repeat offenders.
But I have some friends who do and I’m at a loss at what to advice them when they lay this burden on my shoulder.
Thoughts?
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Xxxtine wrote:
I have an uncle who says some really ignorant things despite being married to my very Filipino aunt. Generally, it’s always best you call them on it saying something to the effect of, “That’s so not cool.” They’ll then reply with either, “It’s a joke” or “You know what I mean.” which should be followed by, “Yeah, that’s still not cool to say.” proceeded by an explanation as to why.
If you aren’t afraid of debate, you can always question them on it - which generally would dig them into their own grave because they’ll start getting defensive. The trick to this is always to remain in a state of wonderment, like you don’t understand what they are saying.
Case in point: a friend (half-Asian) left her dog in the care of her friend (Asian) who walked it everyday when she was away. When she came back, she walked the dog herself and was a approached by a lady she would see often when she walked her dog. The lady said, “Oh, I saw your brother walking your dog the other day.” My friend was so stunned that she couldn’t say anything and walked back home furious.
How I would’ve reacted would’ve been to ask her, “What makes you think he was my brother?”
Posted on 10-Aug-07 at 1:39 pm | Permalink
Jesse! wrote:
I have a two strike rule on that sorta stuff… Yes I call them out on it and if they keep it up or laugh off my reaction, then they don’t stick around that long…
Being white, you get a lot of folks thinking it’s ok to talk about “them” with you, their white brother… so I get this a lot. But it’s not just the white folks that are racist, as that call to action implies… recently had a Taiwanese American drop all kinds of racially and socio-economically insensitive material and I really had to let her know what’s up.
That being said, I have some loooooong time friends (mostly white), who really just don’t get it and I’ve had to resign myself to generally ignore their naive views when they do arise (not often). But there was one time that it got so bad, I just got up and left.
“You’re not leaving because of what we’re saying are you?”
“Yes, I am” then I walked out.
Posted on 10-Aug-07 at 3:31 pm | Permalink
Mike wrote:
Like Jesse, I’ve found that some of my friends, even those who don’t have “more privileges” and aren’t white, can be pretty damn ignorant. Ignorance knows no racial boundaries.
But whomever the person, whatever the case, it seems to me that everyone is socialized with different levels of sensitivities. You may say some things that bother some people, they may say other things that bother you.
Speaking up (I really dig Jesse’s two-strike rule) is a great way to surface an issue that the other person didn’t realize. If the person disagrees with your assessment, then, well, you can’t always change other people.
You can, however, change who your friends are.
Posted on 11-Aug-07 at 8:47 pm | Permalink