Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

In debates or whatever, when people are arguing about one minority or another, a lot of the time people say "I have lots of black friends!" or "I have lots of gay friends!" or "I have lots of Muslim friends!" or whatever. This really annoys me - it implies that in order to be totally non-prejudiced you have to have friends that belong to whatever minority group.

I'm white and male, and my best friends are white males. That's the truth. I have a few Asian friends, no black friends (barely any go to my school and none are my age), a couple of Muslim friends, one Christian best friend and a few other Christian friends, no gay friends (that I know of) and two bisexual friends. I think all people are just like everybody else. I think there are nice people and there are jerks in any one group. I believe everyone deserves the same rights, and nobody at all should be discriminated against for skin colour, hair form, reproductive organs, beliefs or sexual orientation (except for child molesters of course, because they prey on little kids and that's disgusting). I don't need to have friends in every minority group to hold these beliefs - I just do because they're right.

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It also doesn't prove anything - we don't know you're not exagerrating, and it's quite possible that they're exceptions and you still don't *really* respect them all that much.

I really do hate it too.

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CLOCK

Well...I dont nessicarily agree with you there.
The other day, I was playing tennis with this younger kid who is pretty good for his age. Today, we were playing and he said somthing like "That shot was gay." I kinda got offended and I chewed him out and told him its discrimination. I put in that I had friends that are gay, and its really disrespectful. And he shut up.
I see what you're saying, but sometimes it is the appropriate time to show that you support the subject race or gender, and dont discriminate against them.

no it doesn't; when people say "some of my best friends are whatever" they mean to say that they can prove they're not prejudiced since they have friends who are a member of whatever group you're accusing them of being prejudiced towards. it's still not a very good argument, though.

It still denotes racist thought. The person using the argument is mostly concerned with keeping some anti-discriminatory appearance (or pretense), so their preocupation with their friends' races is pretty sketchy. Why would a non-racist care about someone's background in the first place?

Racism is so much more than prejudice and discrimination.

No, it doesn't. It's saying that they've had exeperience with that minority, and are therefore not prejudice against them.

I sometimes say something like that when someone else discriminates against a group, and I happen to have friends in that group. I'm saying I'm getting offended on their behalf.

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The only thing I don't like about people saying that is it makes me feel like they're all elitist. Like, "I have gay friends, thus my opinion is justified". Just, to me, seems like you're looking down upon me.

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Totally agree there. I was watching (for whatever reason--I must have been REALLY bored or something) one of those wife-swapping shows on Fox, and a White woman was placed in a Black family...in her interview, she was all like, "Oh, I love the fact that I was placed in a Black family! I have lots of Black friends, and I don't believe that skin color should matter!" ...Or something to that effect. And I was just sitting there thinking, "If you're so NOT concerned with skin color, why even bring it up in the first place?"

These petty differences that people use to discriminate are horrible things to focus on, IMO. Skin color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc...it should all be like flooring. You don't go into a friend's home and say, "OMG! You have tile floors! I hate you now!" Really. It's stupid, it's petty, it's ridiculous. And it gets really old, especially hearing people who say that it doesn't matter to them yet still bring it up whenever they can.

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Maybe. But it can imply a certain hypocrasy to what they're trying to prove as well.

I mean, the fact someone notes them as gay, black, asian, jewish, or whatever friends shows that they may look at them differently than their friends that are more similar to them; perhaps an insecurity to be called racist or something else?

But it might just mean they're personally offended because their friends are gay, black, asian, or jewish and they care about their friends very much.

You shouldn't necessarily be angry at people for saying something like that. It's hard to judge the underlying meaning of "I have black friends!" unless you know the person pretty well or are very good at reading people.


Me, my best friend is black and it always goes through my head. It's probably the same for her, for me being white, along with the fact that I'm Jewish and she's Christian. But in reality, I could really care less and neither could she, because we both love anime and we both love each other. I got kind of annoyed when my mom was like "We were the only white people there," to someone, after I had went with my parents to a barbecue at their house.

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I .. don't talk about people like that. It doesn't even occur to me.

But looking at it, most of my friends are female (the overwhelming majority), white, Christian (Catholic, specifically) and a little younger than me. But that's to be expected -- I didn't go to a public school, I went to an all girl's Catholic school! That was my environmentt, those are the friends I've made *shrug*

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That's why I think religious/same sex schools are a bad idea. I went to an all boys catholic school you can imagine how harmful it was... it wasn't my parents fault as it was the only school in town with places available.

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