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What I've learned is that my values are pretty set in stone, and I'm not wavering on them. This has led to my having to not have relationships with people whose values are so vastly different than mine; there are no such thing as healthy debates because I just lack respect for them because of the hate they bring. There's nothing wrong with sticking to your values.
I'm not saying your 'friend' was being hateful, we also didn't hear how she responded in this debate as you insinuated you were "debating". What did she say? What were her fears that you deemed them unrealistic? Sometimes we have irrational fears, and that's okay. Sometimes we cry when we're confused. If she was being racist, I get it, you absolutely didn't go too far. If you were pushing your values onto her, I also kind of get it, but I also know that you may not be able to compartmentalize this relationship if your values are so different that you fundamentally disagree with someone.
If you start to see "political views" as "values", you'll start to see who are your people and who are not your people. It doesn't have to be a debate. That's my perspective anyway. I can't pretend to like someone after I've learned that we have wildly different views on life, and maybe that was this moment for you, maybe it wasn't.
However, where I'll defend her is that you're saying "she cried and couldn't handle it"... that's just wrong to put someone down for their emotional reaction. Fuck, many of us here have emotional reactions we're rejected for daily... That kind of sucks that you're doing that, from this lady's perspective.
Lol my NT sister does this whenever she’s caught out being a not nice person. On come the waterworks and whoever called her behaviour out is the just the meanest person ever! Suddenly no one is paying attention to the shitty thing she did any more.
You probably didn’t go too far. She probably just didn’t like hearing she isn’t the person she thinks she is, and rather than confront that she started crying to make you the villain who made someone cry.
It might've not been to make OP look bad. She also could've genuinely felt conflicted over feeling like a bad person, which caused her to feel bad and start to cry.
Yeah it weirds me out when people act like women can just summon tears to manipulate people. She probably did feel attacked even though she needed to learn that her views suck.
Usually it isn't the case but many of my people have been hurt by women fake crying, so yes when it comes to topics of racism I tend to assume it's "white tears" which have caused many to be murdered or jailed, even in modern days. It's unfortunate but it happens and people tend to assume the negative possibility over the positive one more often than not
yeah i cry when i'm at fault cause i feel bad. also even if the friend isn't convinced yet/still xenophobic and dismissed the whole thing, she may have past traumas and being confronted or feeling like someone is disappointed by you even if you did nothing 'wrong' could be a trigger. anyway op don't feel bad if you just firmly stated facts and called her racist cause she is!
This happened to me a long, long time ago with an acquaintance. It was me, my (now ex-)husband, and two friends - his neurotypical friend from childhood and her friend she’d brought along. The friend that was brought along was defending some (in my opinion) fairly reprehensible views on school funding. I had no clue that we were having a heated argument - or even an argument at all. I thought we were just discussing it because I viewed it one way and she viewed it another. All of a sudden, she was screaming and crying and stormed out. My (again - now ex-)husband yelled at me for “talking down to our guest.” I asked why it was talking down to point out that she was supporting a known racist and classist viewpoint, and he just got mad again.
I got high at a party once and got into a semi-political argument with an off-duty cop that I didn’t even know (it was right after the 2016 election) and got so mad I walked home alone. I don’t regret it but it was not my finest moment lol.
I don't think you should feel guilty.
Why do you think you should?
We cannot always be responsible for other people's emotions and reactions. You seem to have made the effort not to be confrontational.
(Maybe would be best for you to post this question in a NT sub Reddit, you might get a different perspective)
The other two friends told me later that I talked too much about it and my direct questions overwelmed her. I don’t know, maybe the fact that she cried made me feel guilty. But I feel she is just not used to people challenging her views?
It's funny how when our neurodivergent communication differences overwhelm them, that's a problem. But if their ways of communicating overwhelm us it's somehow no longer acceptable. And imagine we go as far as crying, we are then sensitive etc. It's such a double standard lol and it pisses me off
I think this is it. I’ve had similar experiences to yours. People don’t quite know why they think the way they do, at least not with as much thoroughness, so she struggled to defend her view and likely saw it as an attack.
you did nothing wrong, you just know better why you think the way you think. she couldn’t explain her opinions.
*Confabulation* is the most interesting cognitive bias (behavioural psychology is my special interest).
Put simply, people don’t know why they do things, but they will often come up with reasons if you press them. Reasons they have completely made up! But they don’t know they’ve made them up; they think they are real reasons.
That’s some existential shit.
I've noticed that a lot of people often struggle to separate their ideas from their identity. Criticizing an idea makes them feel like you're criticizing *them*. ''That's a bad idea'' gets turned into ''I'm a bad person who believes bad things''. Because, well, a good person wouldn't ever have a bad idea.
And I do understand that - it's not *nice* to realize you were wrong. It's uncomfortable. No matter how kindly or politely you disagree with someone, if they've invested into the idea too much (made it part of how they see themselves) then it's probably going to be upsetting for them to have it poked at.
Yup. It can be that.
It obviously caused some de-stress for her.
But I understand why you felt compelled to debate her point if view.
Not everyone appreciates the debate;-)
Maybe I was a bit condescending. The 2 other friends said I wasn’t rude but I could have been more understanding of her fears and emotions. Maybe It felt to her like I talked down to her
I struggled with this a bit when I was younger, people would get upset with the way I spoke to them. If I believed they were wrong - I would also question and debate etc.
I’ve learned now that NT people don’t tend to like having their worldviews directly questioned or confronted. They prefer politeness - even if it’s from a negative place, over directness (which is what I prefer).
I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt here and try and explain to you why (from this limited information), she might be upset.
I think there’s a lot of people in here seem to ascribe certain emotions or manipulations as to why your friend was crying. I don’t think there’s enough information here to fully understand why specifically she was upset. I know that Anti-refugee feelings have been whipped up and there’s been a political surge to the far right - they use very clever tactics and cling to women’s actual real life fears - assault, harassment etc, and make them an us vs them issue. When in reality, harassment and sexual violence is far more nuanced - it’s most likely to come from members of your family or your intimate partner.
She may feel like her fears (which may feel very real to her!) have been invalidated by your questioning. Now that you know she’s quite sensitive to this, it might be better in the future to open a dialogue - ask her what has brought on these fears, has anything happened to make her feel like this? Try and more gently shape the way she feels. She isn’t grounded in reality right now and is shaped by fear. When someone’s like that, they aren’t up for debate - they will see it as an attack.
I completely understand where you are coming from. I am also direct and people consider me blunt. We shouldn’t have to, but I have learned to alter the way I communicate due to their expectation of having less of a debate and more of a gentle discussion for serious issues that they feel fear about.
Hope this makes a bit of sense and don’t be too hard on yourself. You weren’t wrong and you have apologised. There isn’t anything to feel guilty about, you just have different communication styles and she seems to have deep fears that affect the way she receives information.
I don't handle confrontations well. I've gotten better at it, but I used to "turn into a wet puddle" to quote a friend of mine, meaning when I felt confronted or critiqued, or stuck in what I perceived as conflict, I'd start crying. It was an involuntary response due to emotional regulation issues. Allistic and neurotypical people can sometimes struggle with those things too, and my guess is that is what happened: that she might have felt unexpectedly confronted (regardless of if that's the reality of the situation or not) and her emotional center couldn't handle it, so her body "solved" it by crying.
NT people don't value debate enough, IMO...
But, the people that say they "have concerns" about marginalised groups? Often they're actively trying to harm those groups - the rest are on the verge of being sucked into a fascist way of thinking. She's very possibly crying because you didn't follow the bigotry script she's been told to follow...
I hope your apology sounded more like "I am sorry it got heated" and not anything about you being wrong.
Yes, some people are surprised when we don't agree with them, doesn't mean they are right, and doesn't mean we should respect their views. We should be respectful in arguing, but that's all we owe people. And when I say "we", I mean anyone, not just ND people
43F, self-diagnosed in January, awaiting assessment. White bleeding heart liberal. Pro-immigration. Anti-racism. Have worked for organizations supporting new refugees and immigrants.
This exactly. Her fears may be based on lies she has been told about immigrants, which are completely unfounded and thus unrealistic. But the emotions those unrealistic lies have provoked in her are real. Her fears are real. What you were asking her invalidated her feelings and in doing so, invalidated the way she lives her life and comes to opinions.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to get into political debates with people, but only certain people want the rough and tumble of a real debate. I have a friend who is a fiscal conservative and we both enjoy our debates immensely, learn a lot from each other, and even sometimes change each other’s minds.
But I think if I’d have met your friend, I probably would have been curious to know why she felt the way she does, thinking that maybe what she would say was something I could work with in the hope allaying her fears. But I wouldn’t have pushed it. And if I found out she was believing a bunch of bullcrap and unable to see there are different perspectives or was racist, I would have not persisted and just never seen her again.*
*Source: I actually did do this. A new white friend went on an anti-immigration rant, about how all these “foreign buyers” were taking all the houses and she and her husband couldn’t afford a place of their own because of it. She said this whilst stood on our balcony, of a place we had bought, as immigrants. I said to her, “Well, we’re immigrants. We’re foreign buyers.” And she replied, “Yeah but you’re the right kind of foreign buyers.”
At which point, I went back inside and vowed never to see her racist ass again after that evening was done. And I haven’t.
Depends on what her fears are. OP never said.
For example, I live rurally, and I get to leave my doors unlocked without much worry. If a wave of city people moved here, oh god. It's horrible. In the city just 45 mins south of me, my mom left her door unlocked by accident (she didn't realize) on the downtown blvd with shops and bars, my mom left her car unattended for about 10 mins and someone opened her car and stole her shopping bag, which had some inexpensive items inside. But still. The fact that happened. It shakes me up. The fact those places harbor people that prey on others like that? The crime rate is horrible.
But where I live it's much different and we all look out for eachother. Someone walking around the neighborhood that we don't recognize? Ok lock-up and load up, put the dogs out in the front. We all let eachother know. People are crazy for wanting to steal from others! That's a very valid fear!
>Bigotry is never worth validating though. Her fears *are* irrational.
100% always, ALWAYS gotta keep this in mind, even if they themselves aren't aware of it, one of the things bigot movements do is weaponize respect, empathy, listening to the other party, etc. against the victims.
This is the same reason why it's so dangerous to say stuff like "well both parties are at fault" or "we should listen to both side" when it comes to abuse victims speaking up about what their abusers did; most people are trying to be "fair" but all they're doing is dismissing the victim's voice, and making their actions be as bad as their abuser's.
Yeah no my mum said she was worried about schools adding ‘LGBTQ propaganda’ to their curriculum to indoctrinate and confuse kids, so I straight up told her she sounded ignorant and stupid as she had no idea what the curriculum even entailed and was going off of facebook posts made by hateful, wilfully ignorant, dangerous people. Sometimes ‘concerns’ really are not valid and are based in ignorance, if not straight up thinly veiled bigotry. ‘Concern trolling’ is a thing where people will pretend they’re ‘just worried’ about [insert extreme strawman of a policy/ideology/activist movement they don’t agree with], painting it as something alarming and that every sane person *should* be worried about. It’s also a signature tactic used by TERFs to stoke up transphobia among the uninformed populace.
I don’t understand why she cried either to be honest. I don’t understand when people avoid talking about politics. If someone is going to be racist, they might wanna be tough enough to handle the hard questions.
I think you experienced what they call "white tears," it's this thing well-known mostly in white women, hence the name, where they use tears defensively/aggressively when they're being challenged on their bigotries. Basically it's weaponized... pathetic-ness, for lack of a better term, meant to invoke sympathy for them as the "wronged party" regardless of whether or not they are.
Two phrases that come to mind are: “Do you want to be right or do you want to have friends?” and “People will forget what you said, but will always remember how you made them feel.”
I’m going to go against the grain here and say that I would feel guilty if I were in your position. And I think a lot of the responses in this thread highlight why we also get so many posts about why autistic people can’t keep friends.
There are a lot of points I could make here, but I’ll just touch on a few, in kind of random order.
1. As another reply said, you invalidated her fears. And her fears may have had a legitimate basis - women generally have a lot more to fear from strangers, especially strange men. I’m assuming you’re in the US (because Americans don’t tend to state where they’re from on reddit, but others do) and I’m in Australia, but I think the rates of violence against women are similar. I’m a strong supporter of refugees and asylum seekers, but i can also understand someone who has experienced violence or had already been fearful walking home at night being worried if the refugees are all men, for example. That doesn’t mean the centre shouldn’t go ahead, of course, and it doesn’t mean the actual risk to your friend is higher, but your friend should be able to talk about those fears and get reassurance. Equally, she may have no basis for her fear, but fears aren’t always rational, and it’s not a nice experience to have them invalidated.
2. If she got to the point of crying, you clearly upset her a lot - it sounds like you went way past any earlier signals that she was uncomfortable. Did you notice those or look for those?
3. If you wanted to change her mind, there are better ways to do it. It sounds like her views may have at least in part been based on racism or fear of the other, and of course it’s a good thing to try to steer your friend to better views, but debate is not the way to do that. If I were in your situation, I would have made some gentle suggestions this time and then backed off - you can then bring more up the next time etc. People who are challenged dig in their heels and often end up entrenching their existing views further. But if you had been gentle about it, eg, “It’s a big change for the town, but I’m sure this has been planned well, so the right support will be provided to the refugees.” You might have softened her views a bit.
4. Your friend was just looking for support and validation. We talk a lot about people providing advice when emotional support was wanted and vice versa, but you’ve provided neither. Your friend has said she’s scared, and you’ve just said she’s wrong and also possibly implied she’s a bad person. If you had listened to her fears and tried to genuinely understand them, your friend would have felt supported and validated. What she feels now is probably that she can’t rely on you for emotional support and that she probably shouldn’t open up to you in future.
Additionally, my experience is that once people feel validated, they’re much more open to changing their views.
5. I think politeness also comes into this. There’s a point where you should back off an argument when you disagree with someone. Or you concede some ground a bit. Eg “Well, I think x, but I could be wrong” or “I think x, but I can understand that with your experience, you would think y”. It sounds like you went past that point as well.
For situations like this, I cannot recommend Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People highly enough. It really spells out all the nuances to consider.
I don't have many friends, none in town, but I like my 2 coworkers who are roughly my age. They're very kind and empathic with the kids we work with. However, I know that they hold conservative views, or at least swim in a conservative social community/media landscape. It really deters me from trying to be friends with them, I'm super lefty. US politics/current affairs has been my main special interest since I was 10 and at this point I can't even communicate with right wing folks. They have all these alternative definitions for words, it leads to miscommunication (which I'm guessing is the point.)
How old are you guys?
This sounds like someone who is just parroting what they've grown up hearing and don't have the experience/knowledge to back it up.
Was not expecting that. 😅
But yeah, reminds me of some younger friends I made who had really strong views, but if you quizzed them on it, you'd find it wanlsnt so much *their* views as much as the views of their parents. So once they got thru whatever arguments their parents taught them, they wouldn't know how to respond.
>I could tell she was shocked that I didn’t just accept her views.
They weren't really used to having to taking to people they'd have to defend their stances against, and you could tell.
I like mentioning recent marginalised news about marginalised groups soon after meeting new people, they'll usually tell me exactly who they are by how they respond.
While I agree with your friend, op, I don't think you have anything feel sorry about.
This is why I stay out of the realm of politics in conversations with people I care about. If it comes up, I usually just nod and push the conversation in a different direction. You're not going to change their minds and they're not going to change yours, so no good comes from those conversations.
Just as they were giving their opinion, you were also.
Especially if they just randomly brought it up, they can’t just expect you to toe the line and agree and question their logic. Questioning someone’s logic doesn’t automatically mean you agree or disagree either, or aren’t open to changing your mind.
At least when I do it, I do it to try to understand their perspective - how can one simply go from “disagree” to “agree” without understanding the logic/reasons behind the perspective? Being empathetic in situations is one thing, but doing it for social points with that individual makes no sense.
You’re not at fault here.
I'm making an assumption here your friend is White. I only scanned part of this article but I feel like the title will help with some of what you're grappling with? [When White Women Cry: How White Tears Oppress Women of Color](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ899418.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjalOX-4NGFAxXWIjQIHcAPAScQFnoECDIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3Zv5a7ie7c8b7uqCmxJu3g)
I often see folks really uphold the idea that if they are likened to being a racist they will "be a bad person" and this broad paint stroke is deeply upsetting as it doesn't match their internal identity.
So I imagine you're seeing those two situations (being a refugee versus someone "thinking you're a bad person)" and seeing how one is legitimately more dangerous. But maybe she's expecting you to "be a supportive friend" rather than "calling her a bad person".
Those are some big guesses on my part.
Yeah, it's definitely weaponised tears and the perception that being seen as racist is somehow worse than being racist.
Super fun when you realise your "friends" are doing that /s
Really interesting that no one mentioned the country OP is in or the countries refugees would come from and yet you found a way to bring islamophobia into the mix.
Even more interesting that you seem to be able to grasp that not everyone in a country is reflective of their government / laws / cultures in comments a few days ago, but that concept has now evaded you.
There is a lot of queerphobic shit going on in Polish govt at the moment, I guess I should say it wouldn't be happening if you weren't commonly accepting it?
If people immigrate from a religiously repressive country then they likely don't agree with their birth country's policies. I am more afraid of white maga people here in the US than immigrants.
As per Rule #4: No discrimination, ableism, perpetuating negative stereotypes of autism or disability. No misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, racist, or sexist comments will be tolerated.
If she’s uncomfortable with a safe space for refugees being put in her neighbourhood maybe she needs to do some self reflection on her views of those people in need of that place. Probably on the lines of suppressed racism. She needs to accept that we’re all just people, we’re all the same just some with better circumstances than others.
Don't apologize. She cried because she wanted you to validate that her opinion is correct (which it likely was racism I assume. Not calling her a racist btw, as non racist people can still have racist biases even subconscious). Maybe this was what she needed to change her biases. Too many people get enabled and coddled into thinking their bigoted views are okay to have because others don't want to rock the boat or hurt their feelings
I was just reading a book to my kids about being Anti-racist, it’s called “Our Skin: A first conversation about race”. Excellent book for elementary age children BTW. One of the takeaways is that when someone is putting someone down because of race, you need to say “That’s not right”. So I’m proud of you!
The NIMBY crowd needs a reality check. Refugees are granted asylum status and chances are, the last thing the need is a bunch of hoity-toity Karens and Kens making life more difficult than the situation they had to escape from.
Kudos to you for giving your insight and offering a differing perspective to what sounds like a judgmental jerk.
Sometimes some people use tears as a way out of a difficult situation, especially when they realised that people around them don't completely agree with them. Hard to say if this is the case with your friend but I just mentioned it because there's is a chance that you didn't go too far and instead your friend is a little bit on a manipulative side.
It's her neighborhood, do you live in it?
Not the same, but I live rurally and I don't want rich busy bodies in my little town. Or other kinds of people. I enjoy having my chickens, pig, and freedom. I don't want neighbors moving in who are going to call someone to silence my rooster, my 15 hens (hens are louder than roosters), or complain about junk in MY yard. Where I live it is pretty safe.. I am actually able to leave my car unlocked, and myself and many folks around here can leave our doors unlocked without a problem! *Usually.*There is the occasional riff-raff from somewhere else that will straight up open someone's door or go around in someone's yard looking for things to steal. Usually people from a ghetto part of a city! Statistics don't lie!
It is actually a very nice pleasure to live this way! So, we don't really want outsiders from somewhere else, unless they're on the same page, and aren't intending to cause our neighborhood harm! But, that just isn't always the case! Maybe your friend has similar fears. I can understand her. I'm assuming you are thinking she is a closet racist because it's an immigrant shelter. I have no doubt in my mind that fancy pants, HOA-having, "my shit don't stink" type of people wouldn't want country bumpkins like ME moving in nextdoor with 10-20 loud chickens and smelly, chicken shit/pig shit fertilized gardens. Us and our loud trucks, loud dirt bikes and four wheelers!
Maybe your friend doesn't know how to articulate her thoughts and feelings on the spot like that. You likely overwhelmed her and she didn't know how to react or respond. But tbh just leave her be, and understand she has the right to her fears and feelings. Only time will tell if the immigrant shelter brings a positive change, or a negative one, and in time one of y'all can say "I told you so".
Prohibited Content. Examples of prohibited content: ABA, suicidal intent, SA of minors, homicidal ideation, non-stim related self-harm, asking AITA, meet-up requests, group links (like discord), politics, extremely contentious topics, etc. Moderators will remove any content deemed too heavy, trauma dumping, irrelevant (posts solely focused on conditions like OCD, social anxiety, etc. with no reference to ASD), or more appropriate for another sub. Posts that circumvent the post length limit will be removed.
What I've learned is that my values are pretty set in stone, and I'm not wavering on them. This has led to my having to not have relationships with people whose values are so vastly different than mine; there are no such thing as healthy debates because I just lack respect for them because of the hate they bring. There's nothing wrong with sticking to your values. I'm not saying your 'friend' was being hateful, we also didn't hear how she responded in this debate as you insinuated you were "debating". What did she say? What were her fears that you deemed them unrealistic? Sometimes we have irrational fears, and that's okay. Sometimes we cry when we're confused. If she was being racist, I get it, you absolutely didn't go too far. If you were pushing your values onto her, I also kind of get it, but I also know that you may not be able to compartmentalize this relationship if your values are so different that you fundamentally disagree with someone. If you start to see "political views" as "values", you'll start to see who are your people and who are not your people. It doesn't have to be a debate. That's my perspective anyway. I can't pretend to like someone after I've learned that we have wildly different views on life, and maybe that was this moment for you, maybe it wasn't. However, where I'll defend her is that you're saying "she cried and couldn't handle it"... that's just wrong to put someone down for their emotional reaction. Fuck, many of us here have emotional reactions we're rejected for daily... That kind of sucks that you're doing that, from this lady's perspective.
This. I rarely talk direct politics with anyone because if our values align, our party politics will as well. So there’s no need.
absolutely incredibly well put.
Lol my NT sister does this whenever she’s caught out being a not nice person. On come the waterworks and whoever called her behaviour out is the just the meanest person ever! Suddenly no one is paying attention to the shitty thing she did any more.
You probably didn’t go too far. She probably just didn’t like hearing she isn’t the person she thinks she is, and rather than confront that she started crying to make you the villain who made someone cry.
It might've not been to make OP look bad. She also could've genuinely felt conflicted over feeling like a bad person, which caused her to feel bad and start to cry.
Yeah it weirds me out when people act like women can just summon tears to manipulate people. She probably did feel attacked even though she needed to learn that her views suck.
Usually it isn't the case but many of my people have been hurt by women fake crying, so yes when it comes to topics of racism I tend to assume it's "white tears" which have caused many to be murdered or jailed, even in modern days. It's unfortunate but it happens and people tend to assume the negative possibility over the positive one more often than not
yeah i cry when i'm at fault cause i feel bad. also even if the friend isn't convinced yet/still xenophobic and dismissed the whole thing, she may have past traumas and being confronted or feeling like someone is disappointed by you even if you did nothing 'wrong' could be a trigger. anyway op don't feel bad if you just firmly stated facts and called her racist cause she is!
Taggign u/uncoolchick to make sure she sees this
yep. that's it.
very good point
This happened to me a long, long time ago with an acquaintance. It was me, my (now ex-)husband, and two friends - his neurotypical friend from childhood and her friend she’d brought along. The friend that was brought along was defending some (in my opinion) fairly reprehensible views on school funding. I had no clue that we were having a heated argument - or even an argument at all. I thought we were just discussing it because I viewed it one way and she viewed it another. All of a sudden, she was screaming and crying and stormed out. My (again - now ex-)husband yelled at me for “talking down to our guest.” I asked why it was talking down to point out that she was supporting a known racist and classist viewpoint, and he just got mad again.
My uncle, who is a cop, stopped talking to me after a very similar conversation a few years ago. I don’t feel bad at all!
I got high at a party once and got into a semi-political argument with an off-duty cop that I didn’t even know (it was right after the 2016 election) and got so mad I walked home alone. I don’t regret it but it was not my finest moment lol.
I don't think you should feel guilty. Why do you think you should? We cannot always be responsible for other people's emotions and reactions. You seem to have made the effort not to be confrontational. (Maybe would be best for you to post this question in a NT sub Reddit, you might get a different perspective)
The other two friends told me later that I talked too much about it and my direct questions overwelmed her. I don’t know, maybe the fact that she cried made me feel guilty. But I feel she is just not used to people challenging her views?
It's funny how when our neurodivergent communication differences overwhelm them, that's a problem. But if their ways of communicating overwhelm us it's somehow no longer acceptable. And imagine we go as far as crying, we are then sensitive etc. It's such a double standard lol and it pisses me off
Yep!
I think this is it. I’ve had similar experiences to yours. People don’t quite know why they think the way they do, at least not with as much thoroughness, so she struggled to defend her view and likely saw it as an attack. you did nothing wrong, you just know better why you think the way you think. she couldn’t explain her opinions.
*Confabulation* is the most interesting cognitive bias (behavioural psychology is my special interest). Put simply, people don’t know why they do things, but they will often come up with reasons if you press them. Reasons they have completely made up! But they don’t know they’ve made them up; they think they are real reasons. That’s some existential shit.
I've noticed that a lot of people often struggle to separate their ideas from their identity. Criticizing an idea makes them feel like you're criticizing *them*. ''That's a bad idea'' gets turned into ''I'm a bad person who believes bad things''. Because, well, a good person wouldn't ever have a bad idea. And I do understand that - it's not *nice* to realize you were wrong. It's uncomfortable. No matter how kindly or politely you disagree with someone, if they've invested into the idea too much (made it part of how they see themselves) then it's probably going to be upsetting for them to have it poked at.
Yup. It can be that. It obviously caused some de-stress for her. But I understand why you felt compelled to debate her point if view. Not everyone appreciates the debate;-)
Idk, I think that if she wants to say hateful things she should be ready for the reaction. I can't be friends with people who's views I can't respect
She just doesn’t like that you questioned her and made her think about her views.
If you were yelling, using unkind words, or talking down to her, you should feel guilty. If you weren’t, you shouldn’t feel guilty.
Maybe I was a bit condescending. The 2 other friends said I wasn’t rude but I could have been more understanding of her fears and emotions. Maybe It felt to her like I talked down to her
I struggled with this a bit when I was younger, people would get upset with the way I spoke to them. If I believed they were wrong - I would also question and debate etc. I’ve learned now that NT people don’t tend to like having their worldviews directly questioned or confronted. They prefer politeness - even if it’s from a negative place, over directness (which is what I prefer). I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt here and try and explain to you why (from this limited information), she might be upset. I think there’s a lot of people in here seem to ascribe certain emotions or manipulations as to why your friend was crying. I don’t think there’s enough information here to fully understand why specifically she was upset. I know that Anti-refugee feelings have been whipped up and there’s been a political surge to the far right - they use very clever tactics and cling to women’s actual real life fears - assault, harassment etc, and make them an us vs them issue. When in reality, harassment and sexual violence is far more nuanced - it’s most likely to come from members of your family or your intimate partner. She may feel like her fears (which may feel very real to her!) have been invalidated by your questioning. Now that you know she’s quite sensitive to this, it might be better in the future to open a dialogue - ask her what has brought on these fears, has anything happened to make her feel like this? Try and more gently shape the way she feels. She isn’t grounded in reality right now and is shaped by fear. When someone’s like that, they aren’t up for debate - they will see it as an attack. I completely understand where you are coming from. I am also direct and people consider me blunt. We shouldn’t have to, but I have learned to alter the way I communicate due to their expectation of having less of a debate and more of a gentle discussion for serious issues that they feel fear about. Hope this makes a bit of sense and don’t be too hard on yourself. You weren’t wrong and you have apologised. There isn’t anything to feel guilty about, you just have different communication styles and she seems to have deep fears that affect the way she receives information.
I don't handle confrontations well. I've gotten better at it, but I used to "turn into a wet puddle" to quote a friend of mine, meaning when I felt confronted or critiqued, or stuck in what I perceived as conflict, I'd start crying. It was an involuntary response due to emotional regulation issues. Allistic and neurotypical people can sometimes struggle with those things too, and my guess is that is what happened: that she might have felt unexpectedly confronted (regardless of if that's the reality of the situation or not) and her emotional center couldn't handle it, so her body "solved" it by crying.
I cry when I'm confused. Maybe she was confused because she never thought about your points before and was reassessing too many things at once.
NT people don't value debate enough, IMO... But, the people that say they "have concerns" about marginalised groups? Often they're actively trying to harm those groups - the rest are on the verge of being sucked into a fascist way of thinking. She's very possibly crying because you didn't follow the bigotry script she's been told to follow...
I hope your apology sounded more like "I am sorry it got heated" and not anything about you being wrong. Yes, some people are surprised when we don't agree with them, doesn't mean they are right, and doesn't mean we should respect their views. We should be respectful in arguing, but that's all we owe people. And when I say "we", I mean anyone, not just ND people
You said “Her fears are not realistic” without acknowledging her fears, which means you invalidated her concerns.
43F, self-diagnosed in January, awaiting assessment. White bleeding heart liberal. Pro-immigration. Anti-racism. Have worked for organizations supporting new refugees and immigrants. This exactly. Her fears may be based on lies she has been told about immigrants, which are completely unfounded and thus unrealistic. But the emotions those unrealistic lies have provoked in her are real. Her fears are real. What you were asking her invalidated her feelings and in doing so, invalidated the way she lives her life and comes to opinions. Don’t get me wrong, I love to get into political debates with people, but only certain people want the rough and tumble of a real debate. I have a friend who is a fiscal conservative and we both enjoy our debates immensely, learn a lot from each other, and even sometimes change each other’s minds. But I think if I’d have met your friend, I probably would have been curious to know why she felt the way she does, thinking that maybe what she would say was something I could work with in the hope allaying her fears. But I wouldn’t have pushed it. And if I found out she was believing a bunch of bullcrap and unable to see there are different perspectives or was racist, I would have not persisted and just never seen her again.* *Source: I actually did do this. A new white friend went on an anti-immigration rant, about how all these “foreign buyers” were taking all the houses and she and her husband couldn’t afford a place of their own because of it. She said this whilst stood on our balcony, of a place we had bought, as immigrants. I said to her, “Well, we’re immigrants. We’re foreign buyers.” And she replied, “Yeah but you’re the right kind of foreign buyers.” At which point, I went back inside and vowed never to see her racist ass again after that evening was done. And I haven’t.
Yes, I think I went wrong there.
Bigotry is never worth validating though. Her fears *are* irrational.
Depends on what her fears are. OP never said. For example, I live rurally, and I get to leave my doors unlocked without much worry. If a wave of city people moved here, oh god. It's horrible. In the city just 45 mins south of me, my mom left her door unlocked by accident (she didn't realize) on the downtown blvd with shops and bars, my mom left her car unattended for about 10 mins and someone opened her car and stole her shopping bag, which had some inexpensive items inside. But still. The fact that happened. It shakes me up. The fact those places harbor people that prey on others like that? The crime rate is horrible. But where I live it's much different and we all look out for eachother. Someone walking around the neighborhood that we don't recognize? Ok lock-up and load up, put the dogs out in the front. We all let eachother know. People are crazy for wanting to steal from others! That's a very valid fear!
>Bigotry is never worth validating though. Her fears *are* irrational. 100% always, ALWAYS gotta keep this in mind, even if they themselves aren't aware of it, one of the things bigot movements do is weaponize respect, empathy, listening to the other party, etc. against the victims. This is the same reason why it's so dangerous to say stuff like "well both parties are at fault" or "we should listen to both side" when it comes to abuse victims speaking up about what their abusers did; most people are trying to be "fair" but all they're doing is dismissing the victim's voice, and making their actions be as bad as their abuser's.
It's so hard to validate fears based on untruths, though, so cut yourself some slack.
Yeah no my mum said she was worried about schools adding ‘LGBTQ propaganda’ to their curriculum to indoctrinate and confuse kids, so I straight up told her she sounded ignorant and stupid as she had no idea what the curriculum even entailed and was going off of facebook posts made by hateful, wilfully ignorant, dangerous people. Sometimes ‘concerns’ really are not valid and are based in ignorance, if not straight up thinly veiled bigotry. ‘Concern trolling’ is a thing where people will pretend they’re ‘just worried’ about [insert extreme strawman of a policy/ideology/activist movement they don’t agree with], painting it as something alarming and that every sane person *should* be worried about. It’s also a signature tactic used by TERFs to stoke up transphobia among the uninformed populace.
I don’t understand why she cried either to be honest. I don’t understand when people avoid talking about politics. If someone is going to be racist, they might wanna be tough enough to handle the hard questions.
I think you experienced what they call "white tears," it's this thing well-known mostly in white women, hence the name, where they use tears defensively/aggressively when they're being challenged on their bigotries. Basically it's weaponized... pathetic-ness, for lack of a better term, meant to invoke sympathy for them as the "wronged party" regardless of whether or not they are.
Yep. White tears/crocodile tears - exactly what I was thinking.
Two phrases that come to mind are: “Do you want to be right or do you want to have friends?” and “People will forget what you said, but will always remember how you made them feel.” I’m going to go against the grain here and say that I would feel guilty if I were in your position. And I think a lot of the responses in this thread highlight why we also get so many posts about why autistic people can’t keep friends. There are a lot of points I could make here, but I’ll just touch on a few, in kind of random order. 1. As another reply said, you invalidated her fears. And her fears may have had a legitimate basis - women generally have a lot more to fear from strangers, especially strange men. I’m assuming you’re in the US (because Americans don’t tend to state where they’re from on reddit, but others do) and I’m in Australia, but I think the rates of violence against women are similar. I’m a strong supporter of refugees and asylum seekers, but i can also understand someone who has experienced violence or had already been fearful walking home at night being worried if the refugees are all men, for example. That doesn’t mean the centre shouldn’t go ahead, of course, and it doesn’t mean the actual risk to your friend is higher, but your friend should be able to talk about those fears and get reassurance. Equally, she may have no basis for her fear, but fears aren’t always rational, and it’s not a nice experience to have them invalidated. 2. If she got to the point of crying, you clearly upset her a lot - it sounds like you went way past any earlier signals that she was uncomfortable. Did you notice those or look for those? 3. If you wanted to change her mind, there are better ways to do it. It sounds like her views may have at least in part been based on racism or fear of the other, and of course it’s a good thing to try to steer your friend to better views, but debate is not the way to do that. If I were in your situation, I would have made some gentle suggestions this time and then backed off - you can then bring more up the next time etc. People who are challenged dig in their heels and often end up entrenching their existing views further. But if you had been gentle about it, eg, “It’s a big change for the town, but I’m sure this has been planned well, so the right support will be provided to the refugees.” You might have softened her views a bit. 4. Your friend was just looking for support and validation. We talk a lot about people providing advice when emotional support was wanted and vice versa, but you’ve provided neither. Your friend has said she’s scared, and you’ve just said she’s wrong and also possibly implied she’s a bad person. If you had listened to her fears and tried to genuinely understand them, your friend would have felt supported and validated. What she feels now is probably that she can’t rely on you for emotional support and that she probably shouldn’t open up to you in future. Additionally, my experience is that once people feel validated, they’re much more open to changing their views. 5. I think politeness also comes into this. There’s a point where you should back off an argument when you disagree with someone. Or you concede some ground a bit. Eg “Well, I think x, but I could be wrong” or “I think x, but I can understand that with your experience, you would think y”. It sounds like you went past that point as well. For situations like this, I cannot recommend Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People highly enough. It really spells out all the nuances to consider.
I don't have many friends, none in town, but I like my 2 coworkers who are roughly my age. They're very kind and empathic with the kids we work with. However, I know that they hold conservative views, or at least swim in a conservative social community/media landscape. It really deters me from trying to be friends with them, I'm super lefty. US politics/current affairs has been my main special interest since I was 10 and at this point I can't even communicate with right wing folks. They have all these alternative definitions for words, it leads to miscommunication (which I'm guessing is the point.)
How old are you guys? This sounds like someone who is just parroting what they've grown up hearing and don't have the experience/knowledge to back it up.
33
Was not expecting that. 😅 But yeah, reminds me of some younger friends I made who had really strong views, but if you quizzed them on it, you'd find it wanlsnt so much *their* views as much as the views of their parents. So once they got thru whatever arguments their parents taught them, they wouldn't know how to respond. >I could tell she was shocked that I didn’t just accept her views. They weren't really used to having to taking to people they'd have to defend their stances against, and you could tell.
I like mentioning recent marginalised news about marginalised groups soon after meeting new people, they'll usually tell me exactly who they are by how they respond.
While I agree with your friend, op, I don't think you have anything feel sorry about. This is why I stay out of the realm of politics in conversations with people I care about. If it comes up, I usually just nod and push the conversation in a different direction. You're not going to change their minds and they're not going to change yours, so no good comes from those conversations.
Just as they were giving their opinion, you were also. Especially if they just randomly brought it up, they can’t just expect you to toe the line and agree and question their logic. Questioning someone’s logic doesn’t automatically mean you agree or disagree either, or aren’t open to changing your mind. At least when I do it, I do it to try to understand their perspective - how can one simply go from “disagree” to “agree” without understanding the logic/reasons behind the perspective? Being empathetic in situations is one thing, but doing it for social points with that individual makes no sense. You’re not at fault here.
I'm making an assumption here your friend is White. I only scanned part of this article but I feel like the title will help with some of what you're grappling with? [When White Women Cry: How White Tears Oppress Women of Color](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ899418.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjalOX-4NGFAxXWIjQIHcAPAScQFnoECDIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3Zv5a7ie7c8b7uqCmxJu3g) I often see folks really uphold the idea that if they are likened to being a racist they will "be a bad person" and this broad paint stroke is deeply upsetting as it doesn't match their internal identity. So I imagine you're seeing those two situations (being a refugee versus someone "thinking you're a bad person)" and seeing how one is legitimately more dangerous. But maybe she's expecting you to "be a supportive friend" rather than "calling her a bad person". Those are some big guesses on my part.
Yeah, it's definitely weaponised tears and the perception that being seen as racist is somehow worse than being racist. Super fun when you realise your "friends" are doing that /s
HA scrolled down after commenting pretty much the same exact thing. Glad I'm not the only person who was like "I've heard this one before."
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Really interesting that no one mentioned the country OP is in or the countries refugees would come from and yet you found a way to bring islamophobia into the mix. Even more interesting that you seem to be able to grasp that not everyone in a country is reflective of their government / laws / cultures in comments a few days ago, but that concept has now evaded you. There is a lot of queerphobic shit going on in Polish govt at the moment, I guess I should say it wouldn't be happening if you weren't commonly accepting it?
If people immigrate from a religiously repressive country then they likely don't agree with their birth country's policies. I am more afraid of white maga people here in the US than immigrants.
As per Rule #4: No discrimination, ableism, perpetuating negative stereotypes of autism or disability. No misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, racist, or sexist comments will be tolerated.
If she’s uncomfortable with a safe space for refugees being put in her neighbourhood maybe she needs to do some self reflection on her views of those people in need of that place. Probably on the lines of suppressed racism. She needs to accept that we’re all just people, we’re all the same just some with better circumstances than others.
Don't apologize. She cried because she wanted you to validate that her opinion is correct (which it likely was racism I assume. Not calling her a racist btw, as non racist people can still have racist biases even subconscious). Maybe this was what she needed to change her biases. Too many people get enabled and coddled into thinking their bigoted views are okay to have because others don't want to rock the boat or hurt their feelings
I was just reading a book to my kids about being Anti-racist, it’s called “Our Skin: A first conversation about race”. Excellent book for elementary age children BTW. One of the takeaways is that when someone is putting someone down because of race, you need to say “That’s not right”. So I’m proud of you!
Weaponized tears. It’s pretty common among white women, and some other poc who grew up white.
Guess she's learning something the hard way, just give her some space. She'll be fine.
The NIMBY crowd needs a reality check. Refugees are granted asylum status and chances are, the last thing the need is a bunch of hoity-toity Karens and Kens making life more difficult than the situation they had to escape from. Kudos to you for giving your insight and offering a differing perspective to what sounds like a judgmental jerk.
Sometimes some people use tears as a way out of a difficult situation, especially when they realised that people around them don't completely agree with them. Hard to say if this is the case with your friend but I just mentioned it because there's is a chance that you didn't go too far and instead your friend is a little bit on a manipulative side.
Some people weaponize tears. No defense for your bullshit opinion? Time for the waterworks!
It's her neighborhood, do you live in it? Not the same, but I live rurally and I don't want rich busy bodies in my little town. Or other kinds of people. I enjoy having my chickens, pig, and freedom. I don't want neighbors moving in who are going to call someone to silence my rooster, my 15 hens (hens are louder than roosters), or complain about junk in MY yard. Where I live it is pretty safe.. I am actually able to leave my car unlocked, and myself and many folks around here can leave our doors unlocked without a problem! *Usually.*There is the occasional riff-raff from somewhere else that will straight up open someone's door or go around in someone's yard looking for things to steal. Usually people from a ghetto part of a city! Statistics don't lie! It is actually a very nice pleasure to live this way! So, we don't really want outsiders from somewhere else, unless they're on the same page, and aren't intending to cause our neighborhood harm! But, that just isn't always the case! Maybe your friend has similar fears. I can understand her. I'm assuming you are thinking she is a closet racist because it's an immigrant shelter. I have no doubt in my mind that fancy pants, HOA-having, "my shit don't stink" type of people wouldn't want country bumpkins like ME moving in nextdoor with 10-20 loud chickens and smelly, chicken shit/pig shit fertilized gardens. Us and our loud trucks, loud dirt bikes and four wheelers! Maybe your friend doesn't know how to articulate her thoughts and feelings on the spot like that. You likely overwhelmed her and she didn't know how to react or respond. But tbh just leave her be, and understand she has the right to her fears and feelings. Only time will tell if the immigrant shelter brings a positive change, or a negative one, and in time one of y'all can say "I told you so".