This has been bugging me for a few days now. I have this friend; let's call her 'Sara'. Now, I've known 'Sara' for a few years now, since I was a freshman in college. Our friendship is rather loose, in the sense that I don't quite call her a "friend", but more of an acquaintance. Lately it's been even less so, because my schedule has changed over the years and she's become quite the clingy pest, getting huffy at me when work, school or family gets in the way of hanging out. Her big thing now is making jokes at people that she likes to call jokes, but are really derogatory comments. When called out about them, she scoffs and tells you to "grow up, it's just a joke." So last week at our Anime Club meeting, 'Sara' is joking around with another member when I catch the tail end of it and hear "All Spainiards should be shot. They should." Now, none of you may know this, but for the last 4 years I have been studying to become a teacher, specifically an elementary ESL teacher. I've also been studying Spanish for the last 9 years, and will graduate with a Master's degree next spring. To top it all off, I am a quarter Mexican myself. Needless to say, I was not amused. She nudges me and goes "Right, Liz? Spainiards should just be shot, right?" I turn and glare at her, reminding her of everything I outlined above. I shouldn't have had to; she's known me for 3 years now and should know how I feel about things like that. But she just scoffs and just says "F*cking grow up, Liz. It's just a joke." I'm still so steamed about it. I've started ignoring her completely, and other members of our circle of friends have started doing the same (this is the third time she's let some 'joke' slip like that). I've been debating cutting ties completely; I've been trying to for awhile. I think this last incident was the last straw for me. It was extremely uncalled for. If you have read through this whole thing, thanks. I just needed to vent. Any advice is appreciated (though I don't know what for).
She called that a joke? o.O Yikes. As you said, there's not much advice to give about this, but have you told her that she's being a bi-... jerk when she says things like that?
Ya, just cut off all connections. Really, I'd say more ,but thats all I can say. she doesn't deserve your friendship. If she apologized, then it might be alrite, but she really needs to learn. So just cut off your connections with the racist *****
Wow. You should really just stop talking to her. >< If she's known you for that long, she should've know that'd offend you. I say just cut lines with her completely.
I am known to make cutting jokes sometimes (I cal my bi friend a flaming homo, etc, but he's OK with it), but never anything overtly racist. I'm too mature for that. If she is still doing that in COLLEGE, she needs to be taught a lesson. The only way to do that, short of violence or lawsuit, is to have everyone who knows her cut her off until she grows up.
Like the others said, you should break all ties to her. It's ironic really. She tells everyone else to grow up, but she's the only one who needs to.
I'm kinda glad to see that you guys agree with cutting all ties with her...I mean, yeah, if she's known me for that long she should've known better, but like I mentioned as of late she seems to have her best interests in mind and no one else's.
I can see why you'd get annoyed. My friends and I are of all sorts of ethnicites so we tend to tease and say jokes to one another often without taking offense but we never really say things like 'all <insert race here> should die' as a joke. I'd have told her that her jokes are only funny to her so unless she wants no friends, she should consider anyone else's feelings instead of telling them to deal with it. You are dealing with it by not associating with her, as many other people will if she doesn't learn some compassion. So in the end, her rotten sense of humor leaves the joke on her. Hopefully, she will learn to cut it out but maybe if she does say something to you, you can explain that to her and let her have that to chew on a while to see if it wakes her up or not. No one has to accept that kind of behavior so yeah, take your break from it and I hope you have other friends and such and maybe someday she'll wake up and see reality.
ok, she is the one who needs to grow up here. yes cut ties with her! one of my best bud is a Spaniard! Wow, some people...
She rather reminds me of a friend of mine I had for just under a year like half a year ago. She really got to me with two of her constant stream of racist jokes. One of which was at our other friend's birthday and we were watching Takashi's Castle on TV for no apparent reason and she said, really quiet loudly. "Hah! Look at the stupid *****y run!" Which really bugged me because she knows full well I'm very interested in Japan and it's culture and all that. And another time where she started ranting about how all Muslims are terrorists and my only friend for the longest time when I was around six years old was Islamic. I told her that and that I found in offensive, I even told her to just shut up. Didn't stop her from carrying on like I hadn't said anything though ¬¬ But now, as I mentioned, we're not friends any more. And I feel a lot less... dirty I guess for not having to listen to her shyte. So I'd say go for cutting all ties with the b*tch. If she can't respect other people then why the hell should she be allowed to be around other people?
Well, you should try one more time to get the point across, if not, well why on earth would you hang onto someone that bothers you and say insulting **** like that. It's just downright rude and offensive. Good luck ;]
I've been meaning to update this, because some more stuff has gone down since then, and I've forgotten to post. She's still treating this whole thing like a joke, and she really got to me the other day. I work in the cafeteria at the college, and most of the workers down there are Puerto Rican, Portuguese, etc. When they found out I couls speak Spanish, the floodgates opened. I'm their bestest best friend because they find it so cool that someone understands them. I mentioned it's my major and one of them just about wept because he thought it was just so cool. So I was at lunch and one of the workers went on break and came to talk to me for a while. The whole time he was there I ping-ponged between talking to my friends in English and talking with him or translating something into Spanish so he could join in. He got a kick out of it because he felt like he belonged, and the rest of the group thought it was cool to see me in action. Except for 'Sara'. As soon as he came over and started chatting with me, she made this face that I call the "catbutt" face. She just started pouting at him and scowling. When he finally left, she said "Thank God. It's bad enough they're stealing our jobs, but they gotta butt in to our conversations too?" I just couldn't believe it. I was thankful the poor guy wasn't around to hear that, lest I have to translate that for him. A couple group members chewed her out, so she got up and left, clearly not liking that they were siding with me.
