I need to get this off my chest. I became friends with someone in July 2020, and over the years, I came to really value our connection. She’s white, I’m black, and initially she seemed like an ally—always quick to talk about social justice or call out racism in abstract ways. But gradually, I started noticing comments that felt less like jokes and more like microaggressions about my culture, my hair, or other people of color.

The biggest red flag was when she made a casual but very insulting remark about South Asian men (“Ew Indian people”), and then waved off my discomfort. It kept escalating to a point where I compiled a list of these incidents and tried having a real conversation. I sent her a detailed message on how each microaggression had impacted me.

Her response? She said we’d “already resolved” all of it, claimed I was demonizing her just for being white, and insisted I was holding onto the past. She even said I wouldn’t be able to cope around white people if I kept up this level of scrutiny. I felt completely gaslit: she centered her own guilt, brushed off my experiences, and acted like I was picking fights.

On March 5th, 2024, I finally ended the friendship because I just couldn’t handle the emotional labor anymore. Part of me is devastated—I cared about her, and 3½ years is a long time. But another part of me is relieved to be free from the constant invalidation.

Has anyone else had an experience like this? How do you handle losing a friend you trusted, especially when it’s over something as fundamental as racism? I’m still processing a mix of heartbreak, anger, and a weird sense of relief. If you’ve been through it, any advice or solidarity would really help.

TL;DR: We were close friends for almost four years, but her ongoing racist microaggressions and dismissive responses led me to cut ties on March 5th, 2024. Feeling betrayed yet relieved. Looking for any similar experiences or words of wisdom.

I'm Asian American (I speak perfect English with an American accent- California).

A few months ago, I visited Greece, and while shopping in Athens for souvenirs, a lot of store clerks would ask me where I was from. I would of course say America/ USA, and they would give me a bit of a weird look. I just shrugged it off.

But one time there an incident that made me upset. There was this Caucasian Greek lady saying a few words in Mandarin Chinese (I'm not even ethnically Chinese) even though I'd previously told her I was from America. It was a very awkward situation, very uncomfortable.

Then, there was another incident while touring Meteora. I'd booked a tour online, paying extra for the lunch option. But the tour guide (a chubby Greek man with an attitude) who was separating people based on this, put me in the wrong unpaid group. When I told him that I had indeed selected the "lunch option" online, he said it was an "option" as in the sense of being optional to have lunch/ taken to a place to eat and pay out of my pocket. When I kindly tried to say to him that the word "option" meant that I had selected and prepaid lunch, he said I did not understand English. I almost exploded, but composed myself and decided to just let it go. Of course, I was upset for the rest of the day and had trouble enjoying the tour.

While do people associate race with language?

Have you experienced something like this too while vacationing in Europe? What country? What did you do?

Hello racism community,

I wanted to share my disappointing experience in Prague. Over the last three days, I visited the city and was really enjoying my time there. I thought it would be a great place for peaceful walks, and I even considered coming back for weekend strolls. However, on the third day, I experienced something that has left me feeling deeply upset.

That morning, I was physically assaulted by a man. He grabbed my scarf from behind and yelled at me. Despite the tram being full of people, no one reacted or helped. I suspect that this might have been a racially motivated attack, as I wear a headscarf. A friend who has lived here before told me that, although sad, such incidents are unfortunately common because of the high level of Islamophobia.

While I’ve faced verbal abuse on previous trips (only in Europe!), this physical attack was terrifying, and I am still shaken by it. I am now left with a sense of unease, and I am disappointed that this is how I will remember what otherwise seemed like a beautiful city.

Thanks for reading.

Every time I see a Facebook video of a Black person being apprehended by police, or in a trial for committing a crime, or on some kind of security camera I KNOW the comments that are coming. A quick visit to the comments section confirms my suspicions probably 80% of the time:

“Is it them again? It’s always them” “The usual suspects” “Animals”

It’s so hurtful knowing this is how people see my race. Knowing that there is no way to tell who respects me out in the world and who goes home and writes these vile comments behind a computer screen. Who is lingering in the same aisle as me in a grocery store to see if I take anything, or hands off a bag to me at the register and is itching to wash their hands afterwards. Who is staring at me at an otherwise all-white event because my melanin makes them uncomfortable — who left without eating because I touched the food. But they reveal themselves in these comments, so I know they’re out there.

And I would prefer if they would be louder — make themselves known. Instead of masquerading as decent and polite. Shaking hands in public and decimating characters behind closed doors. Dancing to Cardi B in the club just to throw shade at the boisterous group of Black women they pass on the corner in the uber home. Commenting how they’re “not surprised” when they hear about a Black woman leaving a salon without paying because her hair wasn’t done right, but still taking Black clients in their chair. Smiling at their new Black Coworker who looks so “professional” in their straight wig.

I don’t want your backhanded approval, your performative ally-ship, your repressed hypocrisy.

I don’t want to be “a good one”, your token Black friend, the person you don’t say the n-word around, or whom you make your parents stop using it in front of. I don’t want to be “well-spoken” or “well-groomed” or “well-mannered”. I don’t want to be the exception to your fucking stereotypes; I’d rather be nothing to you.

Why hide your racism? Be as upfront about your hatred of me as my skin is about your reason for that hatred. Please, give me all of the information necessary to excuse you from my presence.

For the love of God, if you hate my people, then hate me. And if you hate me, hate all of me.

Hate my money Hate my talent Hate my intelligence Hate my charity Hate my beauty Hate my charm

Reject every part of me that would benefit you, as equally as you would reject the parts you look down upon.

If you want to hate me, then please do.

But hate me loudly.

hi, black female living in the netherlands. and i want to know if i suffered racism or if it was just bullying.

so, yesterday i went to school with an afro. my teacher said that i looked cute and nice, and the girls were also being so nice to me. one boy (he is from latin america, i just cant remember the country), and he asks if I got stretched or electric shocks because my hair was supposedly "too high". another colleague, Ukrainian. starts looking at me laughing and makes comparisons to a black and very ugly doll (because of my hair). I thought it was just bullying and shared the situation with another friend and she said it was racism, but since I don't want to seem dramatic and take the situation to other extremes, I wanted to ask if it was just bullying or if it could be categorized as racism.

please be nice w the answers, and thank you for your attention.

He said in a recent clip

"If Whites were living by the same rules as blacks, it would look like the Vikings, it would look like brutаlity that they could never conceive of."

• Nick Fuentes

Which black rules is he talking about?

Im black myself btw

I've lived in Seattle for over 30 years. And although the Pacific Northwest is beautiful I've found that its natives are not. I have receipts on just how cruel , callous the natives can be. First Seattle is very racially biased despite claiming that its progressive. Sham. Not at all true & I've lived there.

What I've found was that Black women? Are treated like the bottom of the dung heap!

Case in point? Volunteering at an AIDS non profit I won't name it. My role was to do meal prep for terminally sick people who can't get out of the house it was a sort of meals on wheels for people with HIV or other illnesses. I did like it.

One day I approached the Volunteer supervisor by knocking on her door to ask her a question. This woman I'll call her 'Janet' gave me a look that was puzzling. It was a glaring dirty look that you give someone who has made you mad. I ignored the look, then proceeded with asking about a Saturday night bingo event it was a drag show. However the problem was I did not own a car & the location of the event was across town in an old Naval armory bldg. I asked about possible carpooling. I wanted to be safe & I didn't feel that taking a bus to somewhere I wasn't familiar with would be safe for a Black woman to travel alone. I have very good reason for thinking this.

Long story short the supervisor ignored my request but what she ended up doing was a few minutes later she made an appearance in the kitchen were I worked asking all the other volunteers about carpooling! I had just asked her this very same thing in her office. Wow. I quit & went home! I don't like hostile work environments nor do I care to be treated like I'm not even there.

Had another disastrous volunteer work assignment but this time the guy was mentally ill & almost assaulted me. The supervisor didn't care & made it seem my fault.

My suggestion if your Black woman moving to Seattle? Be married, or have a tight network of friends, or a deeply committed relationship otherwise living in Seattle will be worse than solitary in a prison! Seattle is just that! No one trusts anyone & if your new to a group you will be treated like a pariah. I lived in Seattle for over 30 years. Jealousy, bigotry, a cutthroat environment was all I experienced. Being a woman in Seattle & a Black woman was so incredibly difficult that it was a good thing I sought escape in the following:

Tae Kwon Do classes

Dining out at restaurants alone which I did enjoy, I'd go to nice ones even if I could not afford to.

Hang out with my mother

Movies ( before streaming)

Live performance plays

I did go out dancing with my gay male friends they were the only ones who gave me acceptance.

First opportunity I left Seattle so now I'm hoping to get aligned with a community I'm researching that so I can build some semblance of a social life? I will not DATE or go on dating app's I've had such a nightmare dating women I would be LEFT at the table twice. In my lifestyle its' damn near impossible to meet anyone nice & I love all nationalities. Wish me luck! Things have gotten so bad that I now turn to Jesus for help. When you really think about it? Jesus was all Black folks had when things got bad my culture has a dark history with Jim Crow.

I also had racial slurs screamed at me on a Sound Transit bus summer of 2010 during the day on my way to Karate class. Not only that but I was threatened with bodily harm. Police did nothing. The Prosecutor also would not touch the case. See what I mean?

Greetings everyone,

I have been living in Ireland for two years now. I was born in India, grew up in Turkey. However, I can't call any of the countries a home because I grew up overseas and barely spoke the language since I went to an English school.

Fast forward, I move to Ireland for Master's. Joined a table tennis club and made some really good friends. However, lately I started noticing some things about the people at the club. I have made Irish, German, French, Chinese friends. I noticed that while everyone is really nice to you during table tennis, but they just assume that I don't exist outside table tennis or something. Like table tennis club is my spawn point.

People never ask me to exchange phone numbers with them, or Instagram or anything. After training we all stand around to say good bye and make small talk. All my European friends will invite each other right in front of me and just act like I am not even there. They make plans for the weekend and be like "See you tomorrow" and then look at me and say "Okay, see you Monday for table tennis."

That kinda hurt.

I'm gonna move to England to attend uni. I'm moving to Canterbury in particular. Is Canterbury safe for a South Asian? If I face racism what can I do?

I'm just so nervous cause I've never been outta my country and now I'll need to be alone at uni. I'm so scared of racist people and what they could do.

I'm pretty well behaved and I'm not very "cultural' idk how to describe it but I've seen racists get pissed off when they see people wearing traditional south asian clothes. I don't wear them. They also hate the accent. But I don't have a South Asian accent it's more like a mix of American and Russian. Will they hate me omg. I'm scared.

I just wanna get through uni without being a victim of a hate crime.

Lmao sorry if it looks like I overthink but I'm just kinda freaked out right now.

I was at lunch today with my entire team and my manager. We were talking about clients (specifically an Asian client), and then she made a remark “I don’t like how foreigners are taking over..” I was stunned (as I am a person of color with immigrant parents). Then, to make matters even worse, my new co-worker says “I agree!” (Which also stunned me because she is half Filipino). My other co-worker sensed the tension and changed the subject. Now I’m kicking myself for not saying anything. I think I was in shock and speechless. I am not the only one on our team that is a “foreigner” and I fully intend to bring this up to her tomorrow. How do I approach this? What do I say? To be honest, I don’t think it even occurred to her how awful her comment was.

Hello, I'm a Korean college student living in Texas and I experienced some racism today. I was going home from the gym and there were 1 white boy standing and another one sitting on the bench at the entrance. When I was walking to my car, the one standing took a video of me and I just said hi and he said hi back, then I ignored them and went to my car. They looked like high schoolers and were laughing at me. This is my first time experiencing this and I'm a little bit upset because I have many white friends at school and these morons show up to me because I'm asian. Did I handle the situation well? How do I deal with this type of racism? I think I should've like took a video of them back, so I can report them if I wanted to, but I was tired and didn't want to spend my energy on them.

I know racism will always be an issue across the world, but how bad was it in the US during the 80s?

I’ve looked around for the real answer i want but haven’t found it. i know that the reason for these questions are for data purposes but i know there’s something deeper. i’ve seen the answer that hispanic people can be any race so that’s why they ask but any ethnicity can be any race so that doesn’t make sense, also for the ethnicity question you can put hispanic or you can put more than one ethnicity so why is that question not good enough. but that part is all i wanna know, why isn’t there just one question about it? thanks for any response.

I am Asian, and someone (a stranger, non Asian, who was upset with me, unreasonably in my opinion) said my ancestors should be ashamed.

Is this a common saying or is it racism?

I’ve never really understood racism or why people felt the need to enslave others based on something as superficial as the color of their skin. How does that even make sense? Humans are humans, regardless of their appearance, and skin color is just a result of geography. It’s mind-boggling to me how, for so many years, some people justified treating others as inferior simply because they looked different. I wonder how we got to a point where one group believed it was acceptable to enslave another. As a brown man myself, I’ve experienced racism firsthand, and I still do. I just don’t get it. I’m a successful person, a good man, a father, a husband—I’ve never hurt anyone, and I treat others with respect. Yet, sometimes I’m still treated like I’m less because of my skin color. It’s beyond frustrating and completely unfair.

i’m tired of making excuses especially for this system designed for white ppl

bro no other brown person i have met has made me feel good about myself

i don’t know how to feel anymore about being an Indian girl, born to first-gen immigrants, experiencing racism, my parents not validating the racism i have experienced

i wish more ppl were interested in me as an Indian girl

this shit is so goddamn difficult

I was in the train heading home, and an old guy pulled up in the train and started talking to a bunch of black men. He started yelling all kinds of racist shit, calling them dirty monkeys, inpure race, and of course the n-word. My blood was boiling, but I tried not to engage. As I was walking out of the train, this man was still yelling, blocking the train door. I still didn't want to engage, but that asshole was blocking the door. As I didn't feel the need of being polite, I pushed him out the train. He apologized, cuz he thought I was white (I'm from guinea, but I'm very lightskin). He was trying to tell me about his point of view on why he thought the blacks were bad people, and of course, I wasn't going for it. I just said "It may not seem like it, but I'm african. And you have serious mental problems. Everything you said disgusts me, so I suggest you move out my way before shit gets serious. He looked at me with a furious face and pulled his gun on me. I was petrified because I could see it in his eyes he wanted to shoot. So I ran as soon as he got distracted. It still gets me frightened and angry that someone like that man exists. To him, as soon as I said I was african, he saw danger and wanted to put me out, and I couldn't do nothing about it. My family said that I shouldn't have interacted with him, which is right. But I shouldn't be afraid to stand up when I'm right. That was a wake up call of the evil still existent in this world, and now I feel less safe

I’m starting to notice a lot of people are claiming DEI on any person of color in a job. I’m stating to think that people just can’t believe that a person of color can work just as hard and get a job like a white man. It’s disgusting how if it’s a person of color they get doubted but if a white man with no experience has a job then they don’t get any speculation. I’m stating to think that racism is never going away because of this and no one takes minorities seriously unless they fit their interests.

Can a white person be racist to other white people?

Context: I got suspended from another app for making comments about how embarrassing white people are for discrimination. Ive always thought that you couldn't be racist to white people (mind you I am white)

I feel like I’ve tried to put on blinders as much as I can with racist encounters throughout my life, but right now I feel so alone and isolated.

As background, I’m South Asian adopted as a child. I grew up in almost exclusively white communities, and we have also struggled financially for a lot of my life. I didn’t have many friends growing up and was also bullied a lot, but I blamed my looks/personality faults back then, not racism.

In a more diverse college, I finally made some real friends. I found myself clicking best with friend groups that had significant diversity, never all-white. I did try to dig deeper into my ethnic roots in college, joining South Asian clubs, dance groups, etc but I also didn’t click with all-brown friend groups either because of our differing childhood experiences. I think I also have dealt with some internalized racism myself that I’m still battling.

I ended up marrying a white guy and have kids now that are white-passing. We settled in a mid size city, but my kids’ school is pretty much all white. I’ve tried and failed over and over to make friends with the other moms. I am always super friendly, volunteer, go to all the activities that involve parents, even offer to host play dates or dinner parties at my house often. I also try my best to present myself as attractively as possible, always wearing makeup, flattering clothes, etc. I am very enthusiastic about connecting with people. However, no one is enthusiastic with connecting with me. I mostly get polite “sorry, we’re busy then” when I extend invitations and times I’ve actually had people over are never reciprocated. Meanwhile, the moms are always chatting about wine nights and other hangouts in my presence without extending invitations. I don’t find myself as particularly off putting, so the only way I can explain this is racism, maybe even subconscious racism they’re not aware of themselves.

I feel so sad, and this is giving me flashbacks to being excluded as a child from bday parties. I’m also sad for my kids, not being able to build a community for them, as we don’t have family nearby. It’s not an option to move right now due to our jobs. I thought about trying to find communities nearby of people that look like me, but I remember not being able to really click with all South Asian groups either. I don’t really have hobbies that are group oriented. I’m just tired of feeling friendless and isolated. I am tired of feeling inferior because of something I can’t control, even though I know that’s the situation for many in this country. I guess I’m just venting and also looking for any way to possibly feel better. Thanks for reading.

I wouldn't call my parents rasicts on a "I hate black people" kinda level. They are more passively rasict. Something like "oh your friend is super loud and annoying, is he Moroccan?" (I'm talking about Moroccan Jews. That's the stereotype in Israel). What can I do about it? How can I make them stop with those rasict remarks? Got any tips?

Hello everyone! I don't usually post on Reddit but I think I just need some strangers opinion on a thought that's been keeping me really busy lately: I'm a student at a University in a veeery white area in Germany. The course that I study has close to no BIPOC students. I'm also part of the students council and invest a lot of energy into doing work for events/social media and other things. The students council feels like a family of sorts and is leftist in terms of women's rights/ LGBTQ+ /climate change and as I would call it "surface level racism" (as in everyone knows that it's bad). However we've recently had a discussion about whether or not we repost demonstrations/political content on Instagram (we only discussed REposting things in our story, not even posting things ourselves). Still the majority of the council voted against it because they said we didn't need to and could potentially risk backlash for reposting demonstrations (mainly talking about anti-right wing demos). I found this really shocking as I feel like we have a responsibility to (at the very least) not be silent in a time of very concerning German politics. Note: If you're not from Germany, there's been a HUGE push to the right, as has been the case in most of Europe and also the U.S. The extremist-right wing party in Germany was the second-most voted party this past election. In times like these I think it's very telling of someone's character if you totally keep quiet and don't talk about this at all. I find myself in a pretty complicated position as I am more or less only person with a migration background that is very active in the council. I feel overlocked and ignored, because it's not just politics for me. What is happening in Germany right now could turn very bad very quickly and my family and the people I care about, are first in line. I haven't brought it up (yet) because I needed time to process their decision. How do I go about this situation? I almost feel like I have wasted so much life-energy for a organization that doesn't seem to care about BIPOC students, the way it claims. I know that the students council is not an activist organization, but we have a platform and could at the very least show a sign of support for marginalized groups in Germany right now. I thought of leaving the council and invest my energy into an organization, that wants to fight racist structures and tries to make a difference. But the people on the council are my friends and I feel like if I leave there is nobody to represent BIPOC students even slightly. Thanks to everyone who stuck around till the end. I guess I just need some advice or for someone to tell me that I'm not going crazy. Have any of you had similar experiences and how did you deal with the situation?