Dear Eric: When the pandemic started, I began playing online poker with friends I grew up with. We all live in different cities and used to see each other once a year in person but now we play cards and talk once a week.
One of them makes comments once in a while that could be interpreted as general disdain for non-white immigrants (we’re all white), but it’s subtle. I will usually make comments that cut him off before he continues down that road, and the subject is changed.
Last night he came out and said, “I really have a problem with all the brown people coming into the country.” The game was over by that time, and I abruptly said I’m tired, and left the call.
If someone came to me with this problem, I’d say you need to tell him clearly that his views are abhorrent. But we are in our early 60s, so I don’t know if these views are so ingrained that it’s not worthwhile to confront him.
These people have been a part of my life for almost my entire life so it would be a big deal to just cut him loose.
But I can’t pretend he didn’t say what he said and thinks what he thinks. Should I raise it with him one on one? Or should I just cut him off? I will admit that I anticipate that you will let me have it for not doing something sooner.
– No Poker Face
Dear Poker: My, the version of me in your head is doing a lot, isn’t he? The good news is that in real life, it’s not about my opinion of what you did or what he said. (Although, I will say, “brown people” is a very large group to dislike. Who makes the cut? Does he have paint swatches hung up in his house to check?)
But yes, you should say something to him one on one. You write that he’s in his 60s and set in his thinking. But you’re also in your 60s – do you think that it’s too late to change your mind or see a new perspective? I don’t think so. And I don’t think you do, either.
By saying nothing, you created a safe haven for opinions that you find abhorrent – you all did. And that looks like tacit agreement. The phrase “calling in” comes to mind. Calling someone in is an invitation to discussion and repair. It’s a way of saying “what you did or said goes against our community’s values or my values. It concerns me that you hold this opinion. Would you be open to talking it through?”
He may not change. But your goal should be to make it clear how you can be in a relationship going forward. If he wants to be your friend, he has to bring something else to the poker table.
Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.
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