How to be friends with a racist person

Simple: Don't be.I see lots of posts these days from people wondering how to reconcile long-time friendships with people with the sudden discovery that this person doesn't give a flying fig about people who aren't white.It's not complicated. There's no, "Oh, but she's a good person!" or "He and I have been friends since kindergarten and he didn't used to be a white supremacist!"That's nice.But being friends with someone who cares so little about other people is not acceptable.I kind of wanted to write a whole long post about this, but it really is very simple. If you aren't racist, you don't have racist friends and you don't "tsk tsk" them when they make racist jokes.And you tell them why you're not friends anymore, too. Let 'em stew on that.If they don't care? Well, then, you know you made the right decision.Photo by luca savettiere via Flickr Creative Commons.