Comments on: My Best Friend Is Racist

By: Karla

Karla — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 02:11:59 +0000

I am almost a hundred percent sure that my best friend is a racist. we are both Hispanic but she’s always whining about how much she dislikes her ethnicity and how much she wishes she were white. And When I listen to Latin music or celebrate my family’s traditions, she’s always making faces and saying how stupid they are. The other day we were watching a movie and a scene came up where a white woman kissed a black man and the moment it happened she hollered out “I would never kiss a black guy!” with disgust all over her face. An other day, a black man was cast for a character in one of our favorite books that will be turned in to a movie, which we had imagined to be white. Personally I didn’t mind, the only problem I had was that the actor is too old to play the character. Anyways, she was so upset about it she kept yelling “Why is he black!?” I told her that it was okay, we needed to see his acting, she turned to me and almost yelled to my face, ” You don’t understand, I imagined all the characters to be white!” It truly chocked me to see her act like that , and even though she’s always been like that since I met her, lately it has gotten worse. And i don’t know what to do because I love her, but I greatly dislike racist people. Can someone give me any advise?

By: Debbie Marsden

Debbie Marsden — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:45:18 +0000

Hi, I find that there are two types of racists in life, the ignorant racist and the one that knows exactly what they are doing. The first type, I find, are just spouting what they see or hear in certain newspapers or from friends or family, but haven’t really thought about the consequences of this belief. They assume that if they are in “white”, anglo-saxon company then those around them share the same views. The second type, the more unacceptable, one could argue, are those that know exactly what they are saying and have deeply inbuilt prejudices, normally not just about race, but are sexist, ageist, just about every “ist” you can imagine. You can normally discuss the unacceptable behaviour with an “ignorant” racist and after some persuasion they can see the error of their ways and that in today’s society people will not put up with such comments. However, in my experience, the second type will die for their cause and are not even willing to debate this issue as their prejudice is so deep rooted and they consider that they are “right”. Good luck to you and I hope your friends fall into the first category and that they are nice people, but with old fashioned and uninformed views. If they are the second type, well you may as well give up now!