Bigoted best friend?

fluffnutter

shocked222 wrote: »

She sees herself as very liberal and me as too conservative but again that's because of her made up beliefs (she takes pieces of various new age thoughts and combines them to make her own little religion/moral code).

Sorry, but I'm really not warming to her

As she's such a good friend (and you sound a much lovelier person than me), then do the decent thing by telling her why she's upset you. Personally I just cut my old friend dead, but that's because I'm old and cynical and knew that she was beyond any sense I could talk into her.

Plus I'm very firm about where my boundaries are. I don't think it's my responsibility to 'show my friends the errors of their ways'. At the end of the day, they've arrived at their own conclusion about what to believe in life - if I don't like it, then my only choice is to withdraw from it; it's not my job to change people.

However, it's quite a cruel approach. I know my old friend was left bewildered by my actions. If you're a kind person, then speak to her.

Lotus-eater

shocked222 wrote: »

Whether she accepts it or not she suggested black people are some how subhuman and thinks that this is a common held belief. Do I correct her? Do I let her know she made me cry, that she made me feel sick to the stomach? Do I tell her that her beliefs are what justified the slave trade? The holocaust? And give her a chance to see her error? Or do I just gradually distance myself from her for no reason?

It's very hard.

I think I would be honest and tell her it's a massive problem to you that her views place you as an offspring of a human and a subhuman.
And other stuff like that.

Gradually distancing yourself will make you out to be the bad guy, I think a quick break and an explanation is best.

It might even shock her into realising her views are ridiculous, but I wouldn't count on it.

fluffnutter

Person_one wrote: »

I do allow people some slack for their upbringing, I actually do have a racist friend, but I've met her parents enough times to know there was very little chance of her growing up in that poisonous environment and not being damaged by it, I see her as a victim of her parents.

No doubt she is. But even victims can choose a different path in life. Personal responsibility innit.

Person_one

fluffnutter wrote: »

No doubt she is. But even victims can choose a different path in life. Personal responsibility innit.

Its much easier said than done, ask a psychologist!

Denouncing racism would mean condemning her parents, whose approval and affection she still very much craves exactly because they always withheld it and still place conditions on it.

We all want to be loved by our parents, none of us want to think of our parents as terrible human beings.

BugglyB

She is entitled to her view but it wasn't her view that upset you it was her action, which was to say something racist in front of you about someone else.

I have a friend who can be quite bigoted about homosexuality because of his religion but he doesnt act on his feelings and doesn't talk about it around me and thats ok for me. We don't argue about it. If he ever, ever said or did something homophobic to me or around me I'd bin him.

Let us be judged by our actions.

Emmzi

It is in no way the OPs job to educate her racist friend.

She should go and live a hapoy life with reasonable people in it!

londonsurrey

shocked222 wrote: »

Well it's morning and I woke up again feeling like it all must have been a bad dream, then the pain hits with the realisation. I really don't know how to handle it. In alot of ways I'm still young and the way I have historically dealt with people is to cut them off with little explanation but this is my BEST friend and RACISM. Part of me feels she deserves to know how wrong what she said was but I know she will say I'm being ridiculous. She sees herself as very liberal and me as too conservative but again that's because of her made up beliefs (she takes pieces of various new age thoughts and combines them to make her own little religion/moral code). I definitely think she sees her ideas about race as a) true and b) innocent. Would she describe herself as a racist? No way! But out of everyone I have ever met her ideas are the most disgusting and, in a word, sick. Whether she accepts it or not she suggested black people are some how subhuman and thinks that this is a common held belief. Do I correct her? Do I let her know she made me cry, that she made me feel sick to the stomach? Do I tell her that her beliefs are what justified the slave trade? The holocaust? And give her a chance to see her error? Or do I just gradually distance myself from her for no reason?

It's very hard.

There is a difference between plain ignorance and bigotry, which in this case has manifested as racism.

I have heard the most ignorant remarks uttered by people in relative innocence. There was no malice in it, the way children simply notice differences. These are people I don't have a problem with, as I believe in straightforward discussion and exchange of information.

My problem with your friend is that there is malicious intent. She's found an arbitrary category which she believes elevates her above a group, and THEN proceeds to hurl abuse at them. Using her analogy of animals, when was the last time you saw a thinking person start swearing at a deer peacefully walking by?

So no, her terminology is simply designed to hurt and degrade, whilst not bearing up to any intelligent scrutiny.


It's a major shock, I appreciate that. For myself, in order to resolve it in my mind in such a situation, I think I would have to be upfront about it, and tell her that her white supremacist views were ignorant and malevolent, and that I wished to sever contact with her.

As an aside, there was a programme on tv some years ago, where they genetically tested 5 members of a white supremacist group. Four of them turned out to have all kinds of bloodlines, including black, native american and gypsy. So "foreigners" do really get everywhere, and for this group, they even get in your genes.

shocked222

With all due respect I've met her parents, they've met mine and I think if they held the same views as her they "wouldn't have allowed" us to be friends and certainly her parents and siblings wouldn't have treated me with the warmth they have over the years - they all have seen me as family.

All I can think is that she misread a book on slavery or something. The stuff she seemed to be using as justification was the same stuff that I too have seen but it was propaganda used during the height of Slavery and in Nazi Germany. As I've said she isn't bright, she genuinely wouldn't know what the word propaganda means - genuinely. And she is also unshakable as to her beliefs.

I know you are going to say "what?! Why were you friends with this woman?!" but an example of her dumbness/ignorance/lack of tact would be that we had a takeout at her house last year and, as part of my religion, I wasn't allowed to eat certain meats on that day. It's a common religion. I didn't make a big deal, I simply ordered a vegetarian dish without mentioning why. "why aren't you having x? Its not a proper meal without meat?" she said. I casually mentioned that I was having to refrain from certain meats on that particular day because of my faith. "That's ridiculous! And it's not true. The proper God doesn't want you to be deprived. Go on have the x." I explained, politely and sweetly, that self sacrifice is a part of my faith and I couldn't profess to be the religion I am without sticking to the rules. I'm not a hypocrite. Ironically, she is the same religion as me but I am part of a more traditional/orthodox strand. "I can't understand you! God wants you to enjoy your food! I can't believe you won't have the x." She spent the whole night trying to make me eat the food I wasn't allowed. I don't even like the x !!!!!!! I would never eat it regardless, but because she
likes it she can't see why I wouldn't or anyone else. I would never dream of trying to force a Muslim or a Jew to eat a bacon sandwich for example, I'd just accept that it is part of their culture and I'd try to make as little fuss as possible. It was just this total lack of regard for my faith, a lack of respect for my beliefs. And I had no intention of sitting the with a miserable face because I was eating a veggie dish - I'm pretty much a vegetarian by choice anyway but in her mind she totally cannot understand this. And in her mind she isn't being rude or disrespectful. It's like another time, a friend was away doing Hajj and she asked where he was and what was it. And she just kept going, "I don't get it? Why do they have to do that? What is the point of it?" and when I tried to explain she just had this vacuous look. She is just completely ignorant.

tea_lover

I know it hurts to cut someone out but the more you post, the less of a loss she seems tbh.

adouglasmhor

VfM4meplse wrote: »

RuthnJasper is right btw, lychees are delicious!

Can I be a Rambutan?