This might be long. I wanted to get your opinion on something regarding casual racism. I have a white friend who for a variety of reasons I have decided not to be friends with anymore. I will not go into the other reasons why, of which there are several - but one of the reasons is because of a couple of incidents in which he made some very blatantly racist remarks. I will give you an example:

--we go out to eat at a sushi restaurant. there are many asians in the room
this guy: I can't take asians seriously. They all look the same to me.
this guy: They all look like they should be driving around in little rice burners.

(a little background on this guy - he is about 6'2", he is really skinny, like 130lbs. And yet since he has taken some Tae Kwon Do lessons, he seems to think he is a bit of a tough guy)
this guy: (out of the blue) It's really weird walking into a room thinking that you can kick everybody's ass in the place.
--mind you, we're in a room filled with asian guys, a couple of whom were much bigger than he was


This is just one incident like this. There were several in which he made similar type remarks. I did not acknowledge it the first time. The second time, I laughed. The third time, I turned to him and said - 'what you said was really racist.' - to which he had no response, he just kind of smiled, as if it was some kind of joke that I was suppose to laugh off. The fourth time I ignored it again. Some other personal things happened between us, and I just decided I don't need this guy in my life. I stopped answering his calls, but he persists to this day to call me up and ask me to do stuff. At first I found it funny, now I find it a little weird and scary.


I've been thinking about what happened between me and this friend, I have been trying to evaluate my life right now, and really kind of analyze how I relate to other people. I've realized that I have cut off friends in the past for making similar remarks. I think in some of those cases, me cutting them off was justified, and in other cases - it was not justified, and I have lost out on a good friendship.

We've all had friends where we 'bust each other's balls'. Usually in those cases, we feel comfortable around the person and have known them for a long time. I call my buddy a fat *ss slob, for instance. In this particular case, I have only known this guy for a few months, and was not comfortable with him making these kinds of remarks about asians. I'm proud of my ethnicity, and I love my family. I realize this guy has poor social skills, but he was in a room full of asians, with an asian guy - me - and yet he still blurted them out. Furthermore, his remarks were not even vaguely funny and couldn't really be construed as 'kidding around'. Even further, he made similar remarks on severeal occasions.


Have you had to deal with similar situations in your life? Usually when I am confronted with racism, it is never obvious like somebody shouting ethnic slurs in your face - it is always veiled as 'playful kidding around', so that whoever made the remark can always turn around and say that it was a joke - in this case, he did not even bother to do that, even. And I am left to internalize what was said.

I like having friends, I'd like more of them in my life. On the other hand, I'd like to be treated with a certain amount of respect by the people that I am friends with, and if that means that I have to cut certain people off, then so be it. I'm not sure if I overreacted in this case, although I am not planning on being friends with this guy again. This casual racism thing definitely touches on one of my personal boundaries: I let it go a couple of times, but if the person repeats it, then I cut them off.

And I thought - well maybe I should have just gave him sh*t back instead of getting angry about it and reacting passive agressively - but again, I didn't know this guy very well, we weren't that close, and me teasing him about being skinny or about his hair is not the same thing as him making these types of remarks about asians.

I'm in therapy right now - my therapist tells me that - although, a lot of times in my relationships, I am very stubborn and rigid, in this particular case, he would not tell me I was wrong to not want to hang out with this guy anymore. My dad told me the same thing. How do you handle situations like this?

I've had to deal with similar things. In fact, where I'm from it's kind of the norm for people to say those kinds of remarks as jokes/semi-serious thoughts. I use to not say anything, and I still don't. But if they give me crap I kind of dish it back about other things that aren't really funny to them. For some reason, people seem to learn by negative reinforcement more in social situations even though research says otherwise. BTW Tae Kwon Do won't really teach you how to kick someone's ass. It's not complete bullshit, but TKD guys get their asses handed to them in MMA competitions. Let him get into a street fight, in fact encourage it then laugh when he feels embarassed afterwards.

What's happening is that he probably got picked on by other kids and is now copycatting that behavior on "easier targets" to "redeem" his own LSE.

Look, if AMs wanna stop getting picked on, they have to stand up for themselves and FLEX/AMOG. That is simply the law of the jungle and transcends any racial politics. Everything is a shyt-test, dude. And you only get as much as you're willing to put up with. How much shyt do you think Bruce Lee put up with and got? The less he put up with...the less he got. Wow, what a concept!

A monkey prefers a banana to an iPod.
Warning: Dumb people may find me offensive.

I don't understand what you are suggesting - that i should have kicked his ass? I already addressed why I didn't think 'giving him shit back' wouldn't be a sufficient response.

^ No, no need to lose your cool. You want to show your dominance without resorting to such childish antics.

One example I did was with a similar friend, who would make many such comments to our other Asian friends. Well, one day we got into a playful sparring match and I completely PWNED him, in front of everybody. Not maliciously, but with a firm display of superiority. He gave me a lot of respect after that - although he still kept teasing the other guys (who never manned up). And he has also later helped me out in times of need, so I can call him a reliable friend now.

Anyways, I've spent time learning martial arts so I could do that. If you haven't, maybe just think of some good comebacks or start cracking on him and rednecks back! Have some fun with it (like he does with you)...get into a friendly verbal sparring match. Bruce Lee was renowned for making loyal students out of his challengers - which is even better than making enemies!

yeah I took martial arts when I was a kid, but I stopped a long time ago. I guess if you train all the time you'd be much more AMOG in your interactions with people. That's a good suggestion actually, even though it's a typical darklite response. How long have you been taking it? how many times a week do you practice and what not? Just curious. I'm pretty busy, but maybe that's worth looking into.

^ I stopped taking classes a long time ago, but later worked out a lot of skills on my own. Certainly enough to dominate your average joe in a playful encounter.

I believe your friend has insecurity issues and possibly some racist tendencies because of it. I do not think you shoud be worried about cutting off friendships that cause negativity in your life. You are not a priest or a psychologist.

You must live for yourself and try to surround yourself with positivity. When he says that, you should tell him "That was very racist but I forgive you for saying it this one time because of our friendship."

When he says it again you could tell him "I forgave you the first time. But now you've destroyed our friendship because of your insecurity and racism." If he does not respect you, he cannot be your friend.

You're absolutely right about that man. There's no friendship without respect. My bestfriend and I met through an altercation long ago. He's white but I trust him with my life. He was a real magnet for trouble before we met and I stood up for the guy several times. Every one in my neighbourhood had beef with him. The first time we met, he wanted to fight me and I gave him a fight. I earned his respect that day. His daughter is now my goddaughter and he's always welcome into my family. My family refers to him as my white slave as a joke cause I use to order him around like help my mom with the groceries. But he's cool. My family loves him. He's about the only white dude I know that owns a rice cooker and eats rice everyday. He lives out west now and he still asks me to come down for a visit evry now and then. He has introduced me to so many white females its not even funny, I guess you can say perks of the friendship. I've taught him alot, and he even asked me to teach his daughter everything I taught him. The poor girl was born with a hole in her heart but she's ok now after years of surgery. When I look back, my life started off negatively but turned out positively so far. Me and my bestfriend have racist remarks for each other.

With strangers on the other hand that's a totally diffrent story. All depends on what mood i'm in. It's kinda pointless to resort to violence but it's fun.