wife's colleagues openly prejudiced

Hi, everyone—

I’m a black American man married to a black South African woman. My wife has a rewarding job, which affords us opportunities to travel, mingle with interesting people. But her job also requires we hangout with her colleagues, two in particular, a "colored" South African man and his Chinese wife.

The problem is that when we are around this couple, dinner parties, sporting events, the husband does this “splitting” thing whereby he deconstructs iconic black Americans and labels them with these ugly, ugly one-word pejoratives such as, “arrogant”, “loud”, “ghetto”, “incompetent”. Then he recasts these iconic figures into a single group that retains the same negative traits he attributed to them as individuals, “arrogant”, “loud”, “ghetto”, “incompetent”. In essence, he’s hinting that all black Americans share these low traits.

It happens too much to be coincidental. And his targets are almost always black Americans. From a psychological [professional] standpoint, will someone explain to me what this guy is doing and why he’s doing it? Also, can you recommend some things I can say or do to defend myself? Because I believe I’m the person this guy is really aiming for only he's criticizing other black Americans in order to mask his contempt for me.


Thanks, everyone

Prejudicial views and opinions are often inbred into people as children. No one is born racist or prejudiced. As a child grows, they come to believe the viewpoints of their parents and peers and the society they grew up in. Their parents are their first role models, and in a child's eyes, the parents are always "right" and can do no wrong. If their parents have prejudiced or stereotypical views of people, the child will integrate these views, Very often prejudice is borne out of ignorance and unfamiliarity, with a certain element of misplaced fear. Familiarity can dispel prejudice, which is why in integrated societies racism is comparatively rare. Human beings are by nature very often territorial and tribal, and can view unfamiliar people with suspicion and fear. As these people become more familiar, they are no longer perceived as a threat.

Although this explains how stereotypical and prejudiced views are formed, they are not an excuse. Those who are prejudiced tend to view groups of people as a collective, and don't recognise individuality. They are themselves very often afraid to express their own identity and tend to hide behind the group of people with whom they feel they "belong". Independence of thought is not encouraged by these groups and they adopt a tribal mentality. Perhaps the biggest gift a parent can give to their child is to encourage individuality and acceptance of differences, appreciating that all human beings are unique.

It sounds as if this guy is not seeing you as a person, but as a representation of a stereotype that he hasn't bothered to even try to begin to understand. His views and opinions are perhaps very entrenched and inflexible. Reasoning with him is unlikely to have any effect, although as he gets to know you, his views and opinions might change as he begins to see you for the individual that you are.

If he is treating you in abusive ways, this is bullying and is unacceptable. As he works with your wife, perhaps you could approach his place of work and speak to the management there. Companies very often have policies to prevent this type of prejudice and he may be violating company rules. The more that people take a stand against any of the "isms" and question them, the more likely it is that this type of attitude will be challenged. This is how changes for the better and true progression can take place.

A lot of people shoot their mouths off because they thoughtless, insensitive buffoons or bullies. It is so hard to know what to do or say when you are involved as the subject of such an attack. I used to live overseas and get jabs because of where I came from, the language I used, etc, mostly by those who felt their "superior" nationality entitles them to do so. I found this really enraging, especially the more it went on. I usually said nothing so that things would go smoothly but It did make me harbour resentment and those feelings festered inside of me.

I can remember what my brother would do when people like this said offensive things in his presence The second they said it he would look them in the eyes and make a swift and clipped statement like: "don't tell me that", "don't say that" or "I don't want to hear that". He would say it very quickly, almost like a knee jerk reaction. He would show his feelings, which was that he was annoyed. It would catch them off guard, embarrass and shock them. After he initially knocked them off balance he would add something like "I don't like when people say things like that" or "you don't say that around me" for good measure. That pretty much seemed to take care of things and they watched themselves around him after that. I think the manner in which he did it mattered more than the exact words he said. Also, he did not need to justify himself or make any sort of explanation, just that he didn't like it and they shouldn't say it.. period. There really is nothing else they needed to know.