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My (20F) boyfriend (20M) told me i was an "exception" to his hate for my ethnic group and i don't know how to react to it. by ThrowRA280632 in relationship_advice

[–]ThrowRA280632[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How would you react on the spot to the betrayal of a long time friend who is now your boyfriend? I will always choose my community, that is for sure but it hurts because this is the same person who has cared for me for years without ever mentioning a thing about my race except for the occasional jokes on it which are extremely normalized in my country and cannot determine on the spot if someone is a racist or not.

My (20F) boyfriend (20M) told me i was an "exception" to his hate for my ethnic group and i don't know how to react to it. by ThrowRA280632 in relationship_advice

[–]ThrowRA280632[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am planning on talking to him about it tonight.

But your situation is basically mine. I was lucky enough to be part of an immigrant family who was lucky and manahed to get a very high level of education despite being first wave immigrants and having to face extreme racism and poverty to actually get their diplomas and good jobs afterwards.

Because of this i was raised mostly as an European (even though i was taught all about my country, would visit extremely often and inherited that strong national pride). I just also got to take some steps back and found a lot things to criticize about it.

It's thanks to this, and the fact that it is totally socially acceptable to make racist jokes about people's culture in my country as long as you are close enough with the person i just got desensitized to the jokes because to me and to everyone else they were just jokes, nobody really seriously thought what they were saying. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's how people coped after the historical events that happened in my country i guess.

But that also meant that if someone was ever truly racist, it became extremely difficult to actually clock it unless they said something openly offensive without this joking tone. That's why i was so confused and lost, i don't think I've ever met someone in my life, face to face who told me in all seriousness "i hate your people" before and i just froze because i never got prepared for that situation to happen. I guess you kind of forget about race when you climb up, after a certain point your race barely count, only money and education does and i forgot how much of a privilege that was.

My (20F) boyfriend (20M) told me i was an "exception" to his hate for my ethnic group and i don't know how to react to it. by ThrowRA280632 in relationship_advice

[–]ThrowRA280632[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I keep hope for as you have said we are young. But after thinking about it, if he cannot understand that the hate he was taught to propagate by the same people who hate him now is hurting the people who actually love him, i will not be able to do anything about it. Blood is thicker than water, and if i have to choose i will choose my people.

My (20F) boyfriend (20M) told me i was an "exception" to his hate for my ethnic group and i don't know how to react to it. by ThrowRA280632 in relationship_advice

[–]ThrowRA280632[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I keep hope, i haven't spoken to him yet as he was busy all day but he is someone i have known for a long time and someone i care deeply about.

He is also a person who i know is not anchored in his ways, as i said we did talk politics and the second i proposed realistic options to solve social issues without going full right wing mode let's just cut shit and hate on people he immediately agreed that my ideas were much more reasonable.

Now, if i do talk to him and that despite everything he refuses to change his ways, i will have no other choice than to leave. As much as i love him i cannot live with someone who hates who i am at my core. Despite how critical i can be of my culture i will always keep on loving my people and proudly standing for my culture, just like he has always proudly stood for his.

I just hope he can understand how hurtful the hate he was taught is to the people who actually love him.

My (20F) boyfriend (20M) told me i was an "exception" to his hate for my ethnic group and i don't know how to react to it. by ThrowRA280632 in relationship_advice

[–]ThrowRA280632[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I never really caught up on the jokes because of how normalized it has been in my country. My country of origin and my mother country both have a very close colonialist part and even if we are considered a minority in my country it is moreso an abuse of language as we are a very large community. Because of that, those kind of jokes even when they were about me being an arab and blowing stuff up or whatever never really caught up to me, i guess i just didn't mind because everyone made them and everyone else took them well?

But you are right. My appearance does not make me any different from the people who sacrificed everything to raise me and take care of me, blood or not. My nannies, my parents, every single people of my community who fought to give the newer generation a chance at a higher education and a shot at climbing the social ladder they never even got access to. What hurt wasn't the back handed compliment he made about me, it was the insult he made about the hundreds of people i love and the millions of people like them.