I maintain relationships with people like that if I have to work with them, or if I am related to them. Best I can do is suck some breath in, remember that I, too, may be ignorant about something or other, and try to explain as best as I can. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

If it's not a day-to-day relationship, or if they're not a member of my family, I try to ignore it and avoid the person(s) in question. It's what keeps me from getting indigestion from reading comments sections of some of the places I visit on the internet.

I've got a nasty little secret...you probably have a friend who thinks you're ignorant. It's one of those things. I once had a white friend over who put the subtitles on while I was watching Devil In A Blue Dress. I thought about cursing him out before I rememebered the time a Puerto Rican friend chastised me for mispronouncing the word Caribbean. Everyone's ignorant to something, the important thing is to be gentle in informing them of why what they've done is offensive without being hostile, so they don't feel attacked and are more likely to understand what you're saying.

With white folks though, you have to be gentle. They already know they're ignorant, and they hate being reminded of it. It's ironic because at the same time, they're the only ones who have the power to make life miserable for everyone else just because they're ignorant.

Do any of y'all maintain relationships where one person, who has more privilege and is white, regularly says things that are remarkably ignorant? But you know they 'mean well'?

What do you do about that?

Most of my family's like that. They're country people, very rural, very traditional. Anyone who lived in a town with more than 500 people would call 'em "hicks". My grandmother's country as collard greens and we just now got her to stop saying "nigrah", which was how country people of her generation refered to African-Americans they liked. And she only did that because one of her granddaughters told her, "Mommaw, that hurts my black husband and our three children - the great-grandbabies you dote on - when you say that." So, she calls black folk (which is what my parents prefer) "colored people". Baby steps, I suppose.

And it isn't that they "mean well"; it's that they just don't know no damn better or just don't care. There's a lot of 'em that just don't care and will still say the most horrible things you can think of...as long as that particular in-law or those particular grandchildren are out of the room. They'll at least button up if I tell them "Hey, that ain't cool and I'd rather not hear that garbage", because they're tired of me preaching at them. Frankly, I deal with it by living in an entirely different state from the bulk of my family and visiting 'em maybe once a year.

As for non-family members, a lot of it depends on how often ignorant nonsense comes out of their mouths. If it's once and a while, you can give a gentle rebuke and explination as to why you felt their idea that all black men secretly lust after white women and you know it's true, for example, is wrong-headed and hurtful. Sometimes, you get lucky and they learn a little. Lots of folks, though, can't handle any sort of criticism and will bow up on you, thus causing a (hopefully) small argument. It works like this:

Friend: [Dumb Racist Remark]
Matt T.: Hey, man, that was not only pretty damn stupid but incredibly racist.
Friend: ZOMG! You just called me a racist!!!

And it devolves from there. Sometimes, all you can ask for is that they at the very least know that you find such statements racist and unacceptable. It's important to say something, though, to make them at least think about what they're saying and maybe why they're saying it if people find it offensive.

Now, being a country boy with a thick accent and a cracker background, I have run into people who see me as a sort of free pass to rattle off incredibly racist nonsense. And they're always shocked that I don't agree. Invariably, the charge of being "too Politically Correct" comes out and if that means I don't like obnoxious, small-minded jerks, guilty as charged. Still, the PC "slur" is generally a good indicator that whoever uses isn't going to stop saying ignorant nonsense at your say-so. Those people can be avoided. I have told co-workers, classmates, romantic possibilities and friend of romantic possibilities that if they're gonna continue using ignorant, racist language, I'd simply rather not have anything to do with them. You can be a racist or you can be my friend. You can't be both.

And apparently, I'm the jerk. Sorry to have rambled on like this, but this is important to me. There is nothing more cowardly than someone who is against, for example, racism yet remains silent in the face of it so's s/he doesn't hurt the person being racist's feelings.

TRUTH? Your friends probably need to step up and educate their friends. Otherwise, the cycle gets washed, rinsed, and repeated. Imagine if your friends aren't the only Blacks they get down with -- they could potentially be souring relationships across the board with a number of Black people in their camp (even though they mean well). The same way an omission is still a lying hustle -- excusing your friends ignorance because they don't know any better, implies you're not a friend (to) them yourself.

Somewhat tangentially, I have a few close male friends who, despite being generally very progressive and egalitarian, clearly feel threatened by women expressing their support of feminism. It's partly tied up in the weird ferocity associated with the word itself - if I just assert myself with a woman's perspective, they are likely to agree with me, but if I refer to it as a feminist argument, or spin it as a particularly women-oriented issue, then they are much more likely to be defensive. At any rate, over time I have noticed that whenever I bring up a feminist-identified discussion, they can't take the discussion directly, but divert it into a joke aboout stereotypes of feminists, or traditional roles of women or such. And it is challenging to grapple with: these are friends who are smart and caring and whom I love very much, but doesn't failure to accept or acknowledge prejudice constitute a very significant part of sexism or racism? Their failure to be an "ally" in the discussion is conservative and regressive. So along the same line you were saying, how do I tell them to open their eyes?

In answer, though, I haven't yet found an opportunity to point out this dynamic. But I intend to do so, with more or less the following explanation:

"Hey, this is a topic that's important to me, but you refuse to give it any respect. You are a doctor, and are frequently talking about the challenges of the emergency room and the health care system. So imagine if each time you brought it up, I turned it into a joke about how doctors always sleep with their patients. You might know that of course I am just kidding and don't actually believe that, but nonetheless I would be belittling something that means a great deal to you. I would be delegitimizing your perspective, not by actually arguing with it head on, but failing to take it seriously, and thus discarding it. That is exactly how institutionalized prejudice is maintained. You don't always have to take me or feminism seriously, but if you never do at all, think about the overall effect."

Take the path of correction. Let them know what is wrong about what they said with rational and peaceful dialogue. I worked with a girl that I would swear was interracial due to her skin tone, her hair and facial features but she swore she was 100% white. She one day was trying to find a pet name for me and used names she heard from her mother during childhood. The first was "Little Black Sambo" to which she defended by saying her mother gave her a doll by that name and it was something she loved. Then she asked about the possible nickname of "porch monkey" which I assured her wasn't going to go either. Her mother called her and her friends porch monkeys growing up. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she was indeed interracial and her mother took jabs at her throughout her childhood secretly resenting this act. I just explained to her what those names had been used for in history and she understood why she couldn't use them. I also ran down a host of names that she should also never try out on anyone else.

Ignorant is murdering your own kind by the tens of thousands here in the US and by the millions every year in Africa. Ignorance is blaming everyone else for those murders...lol (dumb asses) ignorant is having a whole race of people that couldn't get together and rub penny's together to make shoes for themselves (see African continent). Please, ignorance is 90% of all black people voting for liberal democrats that make sure the black man stays in his ghetto and gets murdered by his brotha's. People as the song goes': I'll see you when you get there. When you ever get there. IF you ever get there

Right, joe, because white people haven't try to wipe out indigenous people here, in Canada, and Australia, and participated in mob lynchings (they were family gatherings for some towns!), and continue to get away with raping women of color. And please don't talk about an entire continent when you don't have the slightest grasp of economics, geopolitics, and history. White supremacy and neocolonialism continue the mass exploitation of the third world's resources and people.

Awesome topic and post.

I used it as the basis of a post made at 8asians.com

Thanks for the insight and commentary.