wwyd-friend situation

[Pea-n-Me]

I really do wonder if his surgery might have anything to do with it, granted it was 2 years ago, but it can take quite a while for the brain to form new connections, and maybe those connections got screwed up recently.

Seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but ...

But even if that were the case...

I'm picturing you several years from now hosting a small gathering of your multi-cultural doctor friends at your house. Your racist friend shows up unexpectedly. Do you invite him in?

From now on, you'll probably be questioning where you see this relationship going in light of this new "element" to his personality.

 

[Jennasis]

Actually, this was near the top of the list of reasons why I divorced my ex husband.

 

[DawnCt1]

My first impression is that he is suffering from some type of traumatic brain injury due to the brain surgery. One doesn't need to be the victim of an accident to suffer a brain injury. Sometimes the effects are subtle and express themselves in impulsive thought or action, or distort a perception. Perhaps something happened a few days prior to this outburst and he perceived a slight from someone in the minority that he spoke harshly against. I am guessing that he wasn't able to go to medical school because of some cognitive deficit that you may not have been aware that he has.
What would I do? I sit down with him and tell him how much his friendship means to you but how disappointed you are to discover that he has these bigoted ideas. Explore with him where they came from. Tell him your point of view. Attempt to disabuse him of any notions that he has about other people. Come to some kind of resolution where he will keep his feelings to himself when he is with you. If worse comes to worse; level with him. Tell him that his values and yours are too far apart to continue a friendship.

 

[Rence]

Long ago I had a very close friend for many years who slowly began to reveal his racist side to me. It was pretty extreme, basically he thought that the Nazi's were right on a lot of things, especially the genetic superiority of the Arian race etc. etc. I had several conversations with him about this over several months to make sure that I was properly assessing where his head was at and what type of person he was. I felt that I owed it to him to ensure that he wasn't joking around and just trying to be shocking or that I was taking a few statements out of context etc.

It became clear to me that he really believed all this and in many ways it was worse than I had originally expected. Basically after a phone conversation on the subject I told him that I could not be friends with someone who held his beliefs, I hung up and never looked back - this was over 20 years ago and I've never regretted my decision.