“I can’t trust Chinese people because they eat dogs in their culture.”

Have you ever been in a situation where someone says something super racist, but doesn’t realize it, and you feel like your whole brain is going to ooze out of your ears from the sheer white ignorance and idiocy of it all? I felt like that every day when I worked at the Farmers Market. I feel like that every time I interact with someone new, and I definitely felt like that when I heard someone (A White™) in one of my classes say, quite literally, “I can’t trust Chinese people because they eat dogs in their culture.”

It felt as though time slowed down; my eyes rolled so hard they almost didn’t come back around, and my brain felt so wrung out of patience that I felt undeserving of my middle name (which literally means patience).

Before I continue, it’s important to clarify a couple of things about the situation. First of all, we were talking about South Korea in class, so where this White got China in their head is too far beyond my comprehension. Second of all, I had heard this very same White complaining a few weeks earlier about how people think they’re racist when they “try so hard to be polite and accepting to everyone.” You can probably understand my exaggerated annoyance at the situation in this context.

Technically, the White’s statement isn’t even a microaggression itself — rather, it’s blatantly racist. The reason I write about it here is because of the intention behind the statement — that White genuinely thought they were making a universal statement that people would agree with them on, as though it was par for the course on a normal day.

The other reason why I’m writing about this on a blog that chronicles microaggressions is because a lot of the reason why microaggressions exist is because people either don’t notice them for what they are, or if they do, then the harmful statements or actions are not called out for what they are. A statement like the one that inspired this particular post is one that is particularly difficult to call out in an interpersonal situation, likely largely because of the unwillingness to label anyone as an outright racist.

I can understand the desire to avoid confrontation. It’s stressful, emotional, exhausting and a lot of the time, doesn’t go in the direction you intended it to. That being said, not everyone has the privilege to avoid confrontation all the time. Although there were no East Asians present when the White made their comment about dogs in China, the comment was (and is) still extremely offensive, and deserved to be called out for what it was.

I wasn’t involved in the small group conversation wherein this comment was made, but given that the classroom is about the size of a shoebox, it’s hard to ignore conversations happening around me. The first thing I felt when I heard The Comment™ was incredulity — why would someone think it’s okay to even say that? For the first few seconds, I was speechless. Then, I tried to diplomatically approach the White about how racist their comment was. Immediately, the White started defending themselves, looking about to their groupmates for support. Thankfully, no one backed them up.

Despite the lack of support, nothing I said was going to change the White’s mind; in fact, the White seemed to be trying their hardest to turn the argument around on me. Class dismissed before the conversation could continue, and before anyone else could get involved (although it was clear that others were just as shocked at the comment as I was), and the White conveniently sped out of the classroom.

The interaction still leaves me feeling gross — I probably could have done more, or said something differently in order to make sure the White knew exactly how racist their comment was. It’s not hard to believe that people have these thoughts, nor that these people consider such thoughts to be common amongst everyone. That doesn’t stop me from feeling just a little bit out of sorts for hearing such comments, and feeling just a little surprised that someone had the nerve to say something like that out loud, to other people.