Something happened last night and I’m still high so I don’t know if I’m overreacting. Me (23F) my friend (25f) and her boyfriend (25m) got drunk and also high on coke, so we were VERY talkative and often times incoherent, if you know you know.
I’ve known my friend, we’ll call her Chloe, for nearly a year and she’s great. Her boyfriend, we’ll call Jack, I’ve never been too keen on. They’ve been together for 5 years and sometimes he can be a bit of a dick, Chloe is not delusional but I think a part of her thinks they’ve been together for so long they may as well make it to the end. He can sometimes be lazy and a bit childish, but overall he is a pretty intelligent guy intellectually and emotionally.
We were talking about really deep topics and the topic of Jack’s family came up. He said how he doesn’t really speak much with his family because they are very ignorant and it’s exhausting trying to ‘correct’ them all the time. Basically lots of racial microaggressions, his mum actually got brought to court because she, and I quote, saw a woman in a hijab sat in a corner and she said to her colleague “I bet she doesn’t speak English” or something along those lines. I believe she is some sort of teacher.
He brought up how his family constantly used slurs and he has to tell them to stop, and Chloe said sometimes family members would say really ignorant things to her because they “can’t say it in front of Jack” and this makes her super uncomfortable too.
For context, he grew up in and his family still lives in Croydon, which is south of London. It is very culturally diverse, specifically with black minorities. Him and his family are white.
He was talking about how it’s very ironic that his mum says the things she says (she’s one of those people who refuses to educate themselves because they think the world has gone ‘sensitive’ and ‘woke’) because one of her best friends is actually black. He was saying how he knows she wouldn’t dare say the things she says in front of her friend, so for her to claim she isn’t being racist is hypocritical.
Anyway, he said “her friend isn’t a [c word that rhymes with moon], I don’t think she knows what my mum says behind closed doors”. I was initially very taken aback because I never hear that word, especially in this country.
I immediately called him out and said that it’s a slur. He said he understands but he meant it in the context of black people being performative towards white people, which is where the word apparently originated. He said people have discussed this with him before and he knows to never say that word in front of someone who is actually black because even if he meant it ‘in that context’ it would obviously be in big trouble. Chloe agreed and said he had to be careful saying that word, it’s clear they have had a conversation about it before.
This is what is confusing me. I do believe using that word is wrong in any context (he said the n word purely has racist origins so he would never say it) and I personally had no idea it has a different context as I’ve only ever known it as a slur (also not very common in the UK either).
I’m just confused because he is very against slurs, always calls out racism etc. I know this doesn’t mean he can’t be racially ignorant but I think I was just very confused in the context of the situation because it came out of nowhere.
Jack isn’t ignorant, he’s quite an emotionally intelligent person and so is Chloe. I don’t know if this is some weird blip.
I’ve had similar situations before with close friends who used words/said things I don’t agree with. I understand no one is perfect, but these situations create a lot of anxiety for me as it triggers a ‘guilty conscience’ reaction in my head which leads to panic attacks and long bouts of depression. I’m currently in therapy unpacking things like this, because some things have grey areas and I’m not automatically a bad person for wanting to stay friends with someone even after they said something out of the blue.
I was just wondering people’s thoughts on this. This is the first time he has ever said something like this and I’ve known him for nearly a year. He is very outspoken against racism and microaggressions usually, so now I feel confused.
Tl;dr my friend’s boyfriend who is usually very outspoken against racism/slurs, mentioned a slur when describing his racist mum’s friend (who is black). He told me as the ‘context’ of the word has multiple meanings he felt okay to use it.
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