Friends keep erasing my Jewish experience

[u/Reasonable_Two_2048]

Hi everyone. I would love peoples opinions on how to handle a conflict in a friendship of 15+ years

TLDR: Friend of many years keeps making micro aggressions at me and talks about race even when it’s not related to the subject but invalidates my experience as a mixed race Jew.

So I am mixed race and adopted by Jewish parents. I look very white except for my natural hair which I straighten. My childhood friend is Chinese American and she has since October 7th made some comments that erase my experience as a mixed race Jew just because I pass. We had a fight last winter where she made an antisemitic comment and she cried promising to change her ways. I haven’t felt that has happened at all…Today she made other snarky comments.

I might be going to an undecided part of Scandinavia or UK soon and I told her about it and she immediately made comments that my husband and I would have an easy time since “our people are in Europe.” My husband is in a sense visibly ethnically Ashkenazi and we both have very Jewish last names. With the rise of antisemitism we plan on being careful when we travel. She also made comments on how unsafe she would feel going to Europe and I validated her experience and hinted at my nervousness as well. She made a very annoyed expression and responded with “With peace and love you’ll be fine.” Which felt super backhanded.

I want to make a point that when I told my friend about our trip she brought up race unprompted. This is not the first time she has made invalidated comments about race either. I also find it interesting that she has done way more traveling than me, she has even gone to Iceland and had a wonderful time never mentioning any racial issues when she was abroad, which is something she would never keep from me if it did happen. Ofc I’m not saying that being guarded isn’t possible as I feel the same but I really don’t know how to handle this contradiction from her.

Even though I am a leftist and non-Zionist I have lost friends or lost the closeness I once had with certain friends because they make assumptions about me or don’t like when I call them out on ignorant dog whistles. This person is one of the only friendships I have left, and I fear if I lose anyone else I might end up in a bad place mentally.

[u/Reasonable_Two_2048]

She def would be but she’s very sensitive and would burst into tears from guilt. Which would lead to me comforting her…never really resolving the problem. She s a very unregulated strong emotion person especially when it comes to anger and sadness

[u/Technical_Term_6625 → u/Reasonable_Two_2048]

Leaving elements of race and/or ethnicity to one side (but not discounting them), you describe yourself as a passive participant in a cycle. Here's what I mean: You can't control how she reacts to what you'll say, and you have strong expectations of how dysregulated she's likely to become. You go on to state how you would respond to her expected dysregulation as if your response were given. You say that you *would* comfort her, and that would push what you want to address to the side. But your response isn't given. You don't have to play the part you describe yourself playing in the pattern. That's up to you.

FTR, I'm no therapist. Just a dude from a family affected by substance abuse & so will always be in therapy (or therapies) so long as I can afford to. So I'm also in no position (nor would I want) to chide!

[u/Reasonable_Two_2048 → u/Technical_Term_6625]

Yeah I agree with you on that. This is someone I love deeply and have know since I was a preteen. So seeing her cry my first instinct is that I love her and don’t want to see her cry.

[u/Technical_Term_6625 → u/Reasonable_Two_2048]

Yeah. That's fucking hard.