Been friends with Jane for 15 years. I would say we're fairly close - we've been on holiday together, I was one of her bridesmaids, I even kept her kids for a week once when she needed to go abroad to deal with her partner who was in a terrible car crash while travelling for work (he recovered and is fine now thank goodness). She's had a hard time in her career over the last few years, missing out on promotions and pay rises - she is in a really niche industry so it's not easy to just apply somewhere else so she just stays where she is and complains. The issue is that she has recently made one particular woman the focus of her blame for her issues at work and has twice now said very racist things to me about it. She hasn't called the woman a racial slur or anything, but she has said that the woman has only got where she is at work because of her race and says that the company keeps this woman in the public-facing leadership position that Jane desperately wants because they just want a "brown face" to tick the diversity box. I myself am an ethnic minority- indigenous to a Central American country- but I'm pretty much white-passing so white British people will often say things in front of me that they wouldn't say in front of someone Black or Asian.
The first time Jane said this to me, I said she had no proof of that and even if she thought she did have proof that it was a racist thing to say. She apologised and agreed that it was inappropriate but that she was just upset. I saw her this week at her house for tea and she has gone back to saying the same things, and that she doesn't feel it's racist because she now has "evidence" to back it up, because "other people [at her company] agree" and because this woman apparently made a mistake that "anyone else would have been fired for".
We fell out, I said I wasn't going to listen anymore and that I was really disappointed in her and I went home early.
She's now sent me an apologetic message - not apologising for the racism, but for bringing it up again when she knew I wouldn't want to hear it. She has promised not to mention it again. But this very much feels like a "sorry you were offended" apology because the only thing she thinks she did wrong was to upset me. I know she still feels the same way and will continue this racist talk and behaviour with other people aside from me.
AIBU to leave her on "read" and let the relationship die? Or should I try to talk her around and make her understand? I suppose the other option is to do what she wants and just to compartmentalise her racism from the rest of who she is and from our relationship but I don't feel like I can.