My gf seems to be bothered that I am 'white and privileged'.

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My gf is bothered by it, that I do not acknowledge it in certain conversations, and she said that she worries it might be ignorance sometimes.  But just because I don't verbally acknowledge it, I don't mean to be ignorant.  I guess I just didn't think of mentioning it, as I often thought I guess if I am what can I do about it.  And whenever I tell her that, she will keep responding back with, that "I am not asking you to do anything about it, I am just asking you to acknowledge it".

But I don't see why I have to do that, because I guess it doesn't occur to me in a lot of the conversations we have about topics, where it doesn't occur to me to, because that is not often the point of the conversations at the time, if that makes sense.  But it seems that time and time again, she becomes more and more bothered or frustrated by this.

After she got frustrated recently, I just told her look, if you have a problem dating someone who is white, then you can just leave me if you like and date someone else.  But then she responds by saying, she doesn't want to do that, as that would regressive on her part, to just date certain races.

But I don't know what she wants me to do when she gets frustrated by this at times when I do not seem to acknowledge it, according to her.  What do you think?  Am I perhaps making too big a deal of this, and an SO in a couple just needs to let off steam once in a while, or what do you think?

Thank you for any advice on this. I really appreciate it.

Please provide the exact context she first bought this up in conversation?

I cannot remember the exact first time or a lot of the past instances, but usually it happens when I laught at certain jokes on TV or something. There was a funny gag in a movie, that had to with a certain culture that caused the last time she brought it up recently, in which it got a lot more heated than usual, which got me concerned.

Did you ask her why she thought your laughing means you are priviliged?

Yes and she said it because I am not aknowledging my privilege when doing so.

Why did she think you had privilege?

I think you missed an opportunity to nip that in the bud

Because I have it more fortunate than those characters in the movie I guess, when I was laughing at their character's expense.

How could I have nipped it in the bud?

Maybe you could act less white and privileged....
Just say to her:

That should make things right.

Warning : Not a expert. This may or may not inflame the situation. I am not one to judge appropriate conduct. If you take my advice and it turns out not so good....well that's on you.

Yeah these days it seems you can keep winning being white, just not with people. Reverse racism.

Regarding privilege I'll use one wise man's saying - "smoke 'em if you got 'em."

I would acknowledge the end of the relationship to her...but that's me.



That just seems like a weird word game. She wants to punish you for things you don't control, and which she seems to dislike. Yet, she dates you because it would be "regressive" to only date certain races...which she seems to like more. Maybe ask her what she likes about you, personally. And why she thinks you should constantly feel guilty for things you don't control, since that's not healthy either. It sounds like she's with you to prove something to herself, rather than for you.

For once I have no advice. All I can say is you’re witnessing critical race theory in practice. Supposedly CRT is a strictly legal and academic thing, but I think the intent has always been to extend CRT concepts to a fundamental societal level, and romantic relationships are by no means an exception. What she’s doing is precisely in line with CRT: You can’t “fix” white racism; you can only attempt to convince white people to acknowledge it. I know you said privilege, not racism, but it all amounts to the same thing.

If it were me, I’d just tell her that I am who and what I am, that I don’t feel guilty at all about it, and I’m not going to acknowledge something I don’t believe is a problem for the sake of validating someone’s sense of victimhood. We live in a society where we can choose to be victims or victors. If you like to win, stay with me, but don’t drag me down with this loser mentality.

I’m not opposed at all to cross-cultural dating. I know I never felt it was the right thing for me. When one’s identity is bound up in culture or skin color, it creates tension. theprisoner’s spoiler, which is a terrible idea, btw, illustrates this kind of tension. It’s ironic how she wants you to acknowledge your privilege and racism, yet she doesn’t want to date black men because it would be regressive…

Wait a minute… Are you telling us the only reason she’s dating you is because you’re
WHITE?

Red flag alert.

Oh I think what she meant was she doesn't want to just stick to dating one race only, as she felt that would that be close minded I think she meant, if that makes sense.

She is indigenous American but also has some white in her as well.

Well, if you're laughin as indians get slaughtered by cowboys on tv.
She has every reason to get mad at you.

I cannot remember everything I laughed at in movies that bothered her but I can remember the most recent one. I was watching Red Heat with my friend and there is a scene where James Belushi and Arnold Schwarzenegger are in a car, and these criminal villains in the movie (who happen to be Black), approach the car. Belushi says to Arnold "heads up, we got a pro basketball team headed towards us", and we thought it was such a dumb stupid line that we couldn't help but laugh at it, and then she got bothered by that. She didn't bring this up in front of my friend of course, but did so later when we were alone.

There was also a situation in the news that was bothering her about criminals who was getting preferencial treatment because they was white they said. We got more into the case when talking about it and I said that I didn't think it was because they were white and thought it was for other reasons, because of some details in the case. I didn't say this in a mean way, just some things occurred to me which made me think those were the reasons, but she says I never see the route problem which is systematic racism.

But I don't know much about the case and only went by the the information in front of me rather than compare and analyze to other things. And she says she felt that was a problem, that I never compare and always take things case by case only.

well let me offically welcome you to the interracial club on WP

Well that now explains her language ironpony.

Ya think!