To lose friends over BLM/political views

[SunshineSusan14]

I think I am quite a broad minded person and am happy to accept other people's views even if I don't agree with them but I've been very moved and educated by the BLM. Recently in a group chat of 5 friends they all started harping on about it with lots of passively racist comments - lots of "I'm not racist but..." and some truly vile and uneducated views. I put my point across and it all turned into a bit of a pile on.

I stood my ground as I feel strongly about it but was polite but now I just think do I really want friends who firstly have such terrible views and secondly can't be respectful about other people's points of view? I highly suspect they went on to slag me off in a private chat.

Meant to be meeting for a socially distanced drink later in the week but now I really don't feel like it. My mental health is already suffering right now I know it will be brought up. But if I don't go after not seeing them for so long it will probably send a message that I'm not bothered. Aibu? Have others experienced this?

OP this sounds a bit like virtue signaling to me. Hang out with whoever you like. Only you know what constitutes a friend for you.

How is saying her mates are racist arses virtue signalling ?

I have posted this very thing on a couple of threads about losing lifelong friends since 2016. A lot of it comes from educating myself on here about how disrespectful pretty much all of my white friends and family have been all of my life that has come to the fore.

I'm left wing but a couple of very close friends are right-wing. Sometimes people are more important than proving yourself to be the winner in a debate. If your friends have qualities that are important to you, keep them. They are not solely defined by their reaction to a moment in history, nor are you.

Does challenging racism equal virtue signalling?
If challenging black people being murdered by police is virtue signalling, we're setting a rather low bar for morality and human rights.

Terms like
White guilt
Virtue signalling

Seem to be going fairly viral last few days

We should ignore this , as it says more about the person saying it

We all know that bad things happen when good people do nothing . So yeah its going to be challenging , sometimes clumsy and whatever step you take could be criticised

But to do and say nothing is worse

I wish it wasn't true but in most small towns racism is barely concealed. It doesn't usually take much of a conversation with anyone before some racist comments are slipped in. Last time I went to the opticians, the optometrist started tapping about how much traffic in the roads, how long it took him to drive home, all down to there being too many people in the country . I cut him off at that point. Look at the Brexit result, the whole issue was fought on racism although I expect some will deny that. There was a thread in here a couple of weeks ago where the OP was looking to live somewhere outside London but was worried about racism. What I'm saying here is really that it in certain areas it will severely restrict the number of friends you are likely to have if you constantly call out racism. You make your choices and personally I prefer quality to quantity but you will find yourself at odds with school mums, work colleagues etc.

I can relate OP. The BLM is definitely showing several characters I could not tolerate to be friends with someone who talk in a negative way about any race. There’s no need and no excuse unless your 70 odd then I can put it down to ignorance and a generation thing.

Don’t be obligated to do anything you don’t want to do.

There was a thread in here a couple of weeks ago where the OP was looking to live somewhere outside London but was worried about racism.
If it's the thread I'm thinking about, it was actually quite silly to paint the UK outside of London as some backwards little England who must be racist, just like the 'we'd love to leave London but we're worried the power might go off outside the M25' threads.

It is hard, especially if you've known them for a very long time and only now have discovered their views on this matter.
My friend earlier this week regurgitated whatever rubbish posts were on Facebook about how there was no systemic racism in the US ( the usual lefties are to blame angle)- and forwarded a Morgan Freeman interview. I couldn't quite believe it really. She casually brought up the looting in the US, saying that "well there was a black lady there who got her shop destroyed and even she was against the protest, saying they should just get a job- because she managed to" . Even after I told her that the experience of one person, does not invalidate the experiences of many - she wasn't convinced.

Honestly, it felt like time had stopped, and my mind was receiving what my friend was saying in super slow motion- I was that shocked.

She's lovely in every other sense of the word, but I'm really conflicted too.

Funny really, we are advised to set boundaries on dates and look for red flags early on. Friendships take such a long time and evolve that opinions like this can often surface much later on in life, where severing ties makes it all the more difficult- still necessary though.

I am from an area of poverty, so whilst I don’t agree with some of my family and friends views on topics such as white privilege I can understand to an extent on why they feel like that. If you feel like you have nothing it’s hard to understand the privilege. Unconscious bias and systemic racism is much easier to comprehend.

I think @Iwalkinmyclothing has it. There's having a different opinion on whether there should be tuition fees or a graduate tax or free university for all - as an example - and disagreeing on universal suffrage and whether women are entitled to vote.

They're both different political opinions but one speaks to a fundamental difference in beliefs and morals.

This isn't like family or work colleagues where you don't have a choice who you spend time with.

I’m just having the conversations and watching closely
I’m one friend down already as her opinions went beyond the pale

Is anyone else weirdly pleased about the white ‘supremacists’ yesterday
It’s bloody awful for the police which is my main concern
But their crappy behaviour is such an OWN GOAL

they were never going to change their views if they only spoke into an echo chamber, and that BAME people need white people to speak up about injustice to their white friends or nothing ever changes.

Within reason, that.

I have some friends of 40 years, who have led a fairly sheltered life. They've lived in a white rural area all their lives and tend not to keep up with current affairs much. And in the last few years they've come out with some worrying attitudes and opinions around race, immigration and Muslims.

I spent my career working in a very multi-ethnic town, and predominantly with Muslim and African families. So I couldn't ignore that. So for years I've been politely and calmly taking the line that "that's not my experience" and offering them examples that show them to be mistaken. In retirement I volunteer with refugees and asylum seekers, and so continue to tell them of injustices and the qualities of the people I see.

Do I think they'll ever do a U turn on their underlying attitudes? Probably not. But to be fair to them, they do listen to me, they've always been kind and thoughtful friends, and they are very altruistic in other ways, being great supporters of homeless charities in their area.

So no, I don't plan to dump them as friends. 60 years of living in a white bubble is going to take some undoing. So I'll continue to chip away in a careful way.

I've just unfriended 3 people on FB that will definitely mean unfriending in real life. But I'm sick of seeing reposted white supremacist shite. It has come out of nowhere - I mean I always knew we were politically very different, but I didn't understand that they were actually racist.

I'd rather hang out with clones of me than racists.

I would be careful with this. One of the things that worries me about the way these protests are going is that any concerns about what is happening with the protests, or differing opinions about the nature of racism, are being branded racist. There are different and reasonable ways to think and talk about these issues that do not mean people are racist.

Sometimes the reason people end up saying "I'm not a racist, but..." is because they know that if they offer any differing thoughts, they will automatically be told they are denying racism exists. No matter what the merit or content of what they are saying. And there is no room for someone to be of goodwill but mistaken in their interpretation either.

Part of the problem IMO is that it's being presented as if black people, in the US and elsewhere, are all of the same view, too. So if you disagree about anything you are dismissing the views of the whole group. That's patently false. There are a variety of views in the black community. There are black neighbourhoods that feel that the police are not active enough against crime affecting them. There are socialist black academics who thing systemic racism is not the most important cause of the problems in black communities and white privilege is not a useful idea. There are conservative black academics who argue that social problems within the black community, like lack of two parent families, are a vital cause of inequality of black families that needs to be addressed within their own community.

So if that variety of viewpoints about their problems is ok within the black community (and who are you to say it isn't,) on what grounds are you going to say your friends with similar views must be racists?

I’m with The Specials when it comes to racist friends.

@Goosefoot

I would be careful with this. One of the things that worries me about the way these protests are going is that any concerns about what is happening with the protests, or differing opinions about the nature of racism, are being branded racist. There are different and reasonable ways to think and talk about these issues that do not mean people are racist.

Sometimes the reason people end up saying "I'm not a racist, but..." is because they know that if they offer any differing thoughts, they will automatically be told they are denying racism exists. No matter what the merit or content of what they are saying. And there is no room for someone to be of goodwill but mistaken in their interpretation either.

Part of the problem IMO is that it's being presented as if black people, in the US and elsewhere, are all of the same view, too. So if you disagree about anything you are dismissing the views of the whole group. That's patently false. There are a variety of views in the black community. There are black neighbourhoods that feel that the police are not active enough against crime affecting them. There are socialist black academics who thing systemic racism is not the most important cause of the problems in black communities and white privilege is not a useful idea. There are conservative black academics who argue that social problems within the black community, like lack of two parent families, are a vital cause of inequality of black families that needs to be addressed within their own community.

So if that variety of viewpoints about their problems is ok within the black community (and who are you to say it isn't,) on what grounds are you going to say your friends with similar views must be racists?

Race is an issue. In your work place (assuming you work) how many black staff are they or Asian??

We are out numbered and there’s not a doubt about that.

Sweetlikecoca But statistically you will be outnumbered at work 86% of the U.K. is white

YANBU. That's why there are some people I don't get into certain conversations with, but the friendship will only go so deep.

I havent RTT but have already removed 2 'friends' from FB. If I'm honest with myself, several things they've posted over the past few months have been offensive but I've mainly ignored it writing it off as a generational thing or just a difference of views but they have then posted blatantly racist posts like 'white lives matter', 'don't you dare play the race card' etc. I thought no, it's ok for me to have boundaries and be upset by this (something I've been working on since a trauma) and removed them so I dont have to look at their bigoted crap anymore. I think its totally fine to do that.