Need consensus advice

[Big Swami]

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.

[Timone]

I think so, dude

[UxKa]

I'd say 3. He probably is a flat out racist, even though he didn't start the "there are black people and there are..." speech that is the most rediculous flat out racist wannabe cover up logic ever. If you talked to him in a more isolated environment he probably would go there.

[Fool]

I just got back from a trip with my daughter to DC. On the trip we met, for the first time, an uncle on my father's side. He and his wife took us to their house, let my daughter swim in their pool, bought us lunch and we talked politics mostly. In the middle of his point he says something about "the brothers and the sisters". I stopped and said, "Are you talking about black people?" He spent the next two minutes trying to get out of having just dropped what he had dropped. I spent those two minutes saying, "No. Those were your words. No. That's not what you said." Had never met the guy before. Called him out immediately. Lasted two minutes. We went on with the conversation afterward. Had a really nice time.

I pick #4.

How was it a wake-up call? It opened your eyes to how people perceive you? To the fact that white middle-class people can be racist? That your friends associate with racists? Your mom raised a pussy?

Also, private polls suck.

[Shoopy]

I voted 2.

There's a pretty gross double-standard out there when it comes to racism.

If you're black, then go ahead and stick a Negro College Fund sticker on the bumper of your car and proclaim you're a "fried chicken kind of girl."

White? Call black people African-American. You will be called white, even though 'racial equality' suggests you be called European-American.

If race didn't matter to these bleeding-heart liberals, then we wouldn't need to specify race on applications of any kind, etc.

[DennyMcLain]

Does this mean you be a brotha, Fool... like those jive dudes in "Airplane"?

[Hermy]

That's the prevalent attitude in West Michigan workplaces.

[Big Swami]

How was it a wake-up call? It opened your eyes to how people perceive you?

Yes.

To the fact that white middle-class people can be racist?

No, I guess it's more to the point that I was not expecting this kind of attitude to come from someone with whom I had that much in common - same background, raised in the same town, etc.

That your friends associate with racists?

Hey now. I think they may have been just as surprised as me.

Your mom raised a pussy?

Wow, really? This is what you're coming with?

Also, private polls suck.

Didn't mean to make it private. That was an accident. I'll post the results if it makes you feel better.

[Uncle Mxy]

I'd have to know the crowd a bit better before I brought up anything racial, such as white stereotypes/"Stuff White People Like".

Life is like a bunch of racists. You never know what you're gonna get.

[Fool]

This place gets soft whenever I leave. I was only playin' with the last one.

No Denny, I'm not black. I don't think dude would have dropped a "the brothers and sisters" comment to my face if I had been black.