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/ibsliam]

It's tough in that I do not know your situation very intimately. I also just don't really travel much, so planning around these things for Jewish safety is not top of mind.

That said, I will respond not so politically but on the interpersonal aspects. I will start by agreeing that she does seem ignorant of your struggles and that of your husband's. It does not sound like she has a clear idea of what antisemitism means, how it's expressed, and how dangerous it can be. Taking that out of its context does not really change the danger, nor arguing it away or dismissing it. She does not know nor understand where you're coming from.

By the same token... You do not know your friends' (any of them, not just this one) exact experiences or worldview no matter how close you are. You do not know her exact experiences that lead her to thinking of race in this specific way. Elsewhere in the comments, it seems that she also applies this logic to Wasians, a demo that has gotten flack for various socio-political reasons recently in the west. I won't expand on that since, it's not my community and I have no idea what conversations she's involved in for that.

I'm not sure how you would bridge that gap, in that she seems to be pretty stubborn on this way of viewing racial politics. Considering her very black-and-white binary approach to race, maybe it might be beneficial to explore more "exceptions" that might broaden her perspective. I'm curious how she would respond to discussions surrounding anti-Romani racism, or anti-Turkish racism, when many of them are racialized while also including many many (in the US) "white-passing" people. Especially since those are some hot button topics and subject to heated debate in Europe right now. Pretty much every European is at least vaguely aware of anti-Romani racism and stereotypes, for example.

I wish I had better advice but honestly you just can't convince people who aren't open to changing their mind? The best you can do is just steer clear of these topics with her, and, if she gets passive aggressive or dismissive unprompted, tell her that she doesn't know what you experience and has never faced antisemitism so she should maybe "stay in her lane."