I feel like some of my life-long friends have been slowly falling down into a racist suburban american paranoia ideology.

For example: I've lived in a lot of neighborhoods as an adult that are less than 99% white. Therefore where I live is "ghetto". That my friend will somehow be a victim of random acts of crime for visiting. That they can't visit after dark etc.

Or sometimes they'll just pull statements out of the air, usually with little to no prompt. Like In a group chat, someone brought up the month of June, another friend said "is that Juneteenth? Do we need to pretend to care when that is?" Very thinly-veiled "humor" and that's being extremely generous by even pretending to call it that.

The instinctive answer is "find new friends lol" but I don't like that answer.

First, because I genuinely believe my friends are good people, and want to do good, despite their ignorance. Second, the basis of most racism is that I believe they fear what they don't understand. And sure, there sure be some onus on them to attempt to learn. But how?

Third, I hope that by challenging their views in a constructive way, perhaps they might reconsider even for a moment how they view the world. And forth, if I found new friends, this people would continue to exist, now unchallenged by opposing thought which will only further incubate themselves in their sinkhole ideology.

So what are some ways to approach this? If I say the obvious "like this is racist as fuck", it's only going to make them defensive. And it's kind of dumb I even have to be gently cognizant because white people see racism as an immortal, intentional act. So the conversation goes nowhere if you call a white person racist since they'll automatically get defensive.

I'm kind of rambling at this point. Would like to hear ways everyone here tries to save friends you see sinking down the suburban pipeline when it comes to micro (and semi-macro) aggressions.

  • cilantrofellow [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Unfortunately a lot of the best strategies don’t work remotely - body language and tone goes a long way to critique bad behavior compassionately. If you’re with them in person, you can orient a response that says “I know you meant that as a joke but don’t say that” much more successfully than when limited to text.

    I think the other thing you can do is talk about your own experiences and model a better way of thinking. Throw in casually spending time in your neighborhood and, if you do, volunteering with social justice efforts. Talk about how upset you were about something another person said and how that’s not ok. Talk about something you saw that was really important for racial and social justice efforts and why it makes you feel optimistic.

    I guess it’s not just fear of the unknown, it’s the lack of an attractive template to make it seem like a realistic thing to follow.

    E: another thing to realize is getting a defensive response isn’t always a bad thing. Talking with my parents about trans stuff always went down the child molester avenue and I would push back calmly but assertively. They would act like I was shaming them at the time but the next conversation would be easier and they would move towards my pov. We’re still not all the way there yet but they don’t make pronoun jokes anymore, hopefully(?) with others as well as with me.