Think my friend has been hiding a racist past. Either that or he is just stupid ignorant
I genuinely don't know what to do with him. I've always had a bit of a problem with him because he makes racist jokes and says racist shit but he always apologized or at the least doesn't seem to understand how he was being racist and asks me to explain it to him (which drives me nuts cause it is constantly NGL).
He generally has a clueless way about him. It isn't even just the racism that he is clueless about. It is practically everything. He has severe unmedicated ADHD which probably contributed to that and he grew up in an abusive environment which has led to him having PTSD, anxiety issues, and seeming to dissociate from negative experiences.
But none of that is why I'm writing this post. I'm writing this post because we got into an argument about the Confederate flag and it's meaning. He seemed to think it was a good thing despite claiming to be antislavery and anti racist. Towards the end he seemed to be coming around as I explained the history of the flag more but then he said something that had me literally jumping from the car and speed walking away (we were at a red light and not extremely far from home).
Apparently he had hung one of these flags up for a time on the front door of his apartment because of some guy in some tv show he liked. But the flag also had words on it. He seemed to realize these words were going to be racist but was telling me he didn't know what they meant. He was obviously hesitant to tell me but in the end told me the flag has the words "white power" on it.
Now I don't get how he didn't understand what those words meant. It seems very obviously racist to me and very obviously something you should at least look up before hanging on your door for all your neighbors to see. I felt instantly disgusted and instantly sorry for all his neighbors and any POC who saw that flag. And I didn't know how to handle the situation and simply noped my way out of the situation.
We've kind of made up now. He was apologetic and even suggested we maybe stop talking for a bit since he obviously made me uncomfortable which I didn't think would help the situation at all but I also don't know what the hell to do either. I'm not sure how to feel or how to react to something like this. He has kind of just brushed the experience off too which also pisses me off a bit. I feel he should feel much worse about this if it was as simple as not understanding what it meant. I mean is this a sign he isn't just ignorant racist but actual full on racist. We have a mutual friend who is a POC. She brushed off the experience too but I just don't know. What would you do?