It was actually my fiance, and she was a very good person, and this took me by complete surprise, and I have a vague recollection of what she said. In the years we'd been together I'd never heard her say anything like this. She was stereotyping Black people as being more likely to commit crimes, but not in those words. I remember a little flash of anger and disappointment. I didn't tell her, I just asked, "Whoa, are you a racist?" The words just flew out of my mouth without time to think about it. She looked shocked (not angry) and then she asked me back, "Am I a racist?" or "Was that racist?" I could tell she was thinking about what had just happened. She wasn't defensive. We were both just shocked. I said, "I don't know, but that sounded racist" but I likely softened it by saying something like, "Just something to think about." It was a shocking moment for both of us, because my words just came out of my mouth before I could stop them. There was no thinking, it just couldn't be stopped. Everything completely stopped for a few moments. Slowly things went back to normal but I never heard her make another disparaging comment about African Americans.
We were both in our twenties. Today I would handle a situation like that with more care. But I just remember being so shocked by what she said, even though nowadays you hear worse on right wing radio.
Just thinking about it now is upsetting.
The second case, this was a friend I met working at an animal shelter, and she wrote me an email ranting about a Jewish friend of hers. They were actually good friends but out of the blue this friend asked me, "Don't you think there's some truth to the fact Jewish people are greedy and selfish with money" or some garbage like that. I just replied that she was being anti-semitic and that I didn't believe Jewish people were greedier than anybody else. I didn't hear from her for a few days.
The first incident was more upsetting because we were so close and because it was face to face without any time to think about what I was going to say.
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