I had a really scary conversation last week that was a huge wake-up call for me, and I want to know if I'm just imagining things.

I was at a party - it was a really small get-together with no more than 10 people. I was talking about The Wire (the TV show). I brought it up and a woman immediately said, "that's the best show on TV."

In response, I brought up the fact that the website "Stuff White People Like" says exactly the same thing - if you go to a party with white people, and you mention The Wire, someone will say it's the best show on TV.

A white guy to my left, who had been pretty quiet all night long, said, "Yeah, they should make a website called Stuff Black People Like. I bet people wouldn't find it nearly as funny."

I was in a joking mood, so I turned to him and said, "yeah, but we white people have kind of earned it. We do a lot of annoying things."

Very casually, the guy responds with "well I wouldn't know anything about that, since I'm not a self-hating white person." Then he got up and said, "there are a lot of colored people who annoy me." Then he walked away.

I was completely freaked out - first of all, that this guy did not have a problem just saying this out loud in a group of people with some people he didn't know well. Second of all, this is not the kind of talk you expect to hear from a middle-class guy in his mid-30s, which he was. Lastly, no one in this party said a damn thing to him about his remarks, everyone just acted like nothing happened.

I've told this story to a lot of people I know and I've heard several different reactions:

1) "You are kind of a self-hating white person, you know."
2) "I think you are a self-hating white person, but so am I, and I really don't see anything wrong with that."
3) "See, what happened is you had a run-in with a flat out fucking racist."
4) "You should have started some shit with that guy. Why didn't you call him out?"
5) "You need to talk to the people who hosted this party, ask them 'what's up with your boy?'"

I need a vote on 1-5, with a possible #6 option of something not listed here. This is really bugging me.