These 29 People Regret Accidental Racist Moments

9.

English is my mother’s second language, so I grew up learning the wrong names for some words. In middle school, I brought home my Japanese friend. My mother loved her, and everything went great. After my friend leaves my mother says, “What a sweet little Chinky Dink.” My first instinct was those Shrinky Dink things from when I was a kid so I asked my mom what the f*ck a “Chinky Dink” was. “It’s another word for Asian.” Imagine the horror when I tell my friend that she’s got the prettiest “Chinky Dink” eyes in an attempt to (awkwardly) tell her I was jealous of their almond shape.

10.

Mine was when I was in secondary school and pronounced Niger as n*gger. I really had no clue what I said at the time.

11.

When we were leaving the class for a fire drill someone turned the lights off and I turned around to my black friend and told him to smile so I can see him. We usually made jokes like that to each other but that one kinda slipped out and wasn’t appropriate.

12.

I was having dinner with my friend (he’s black, I’m white) and we went through many topics, including the fact that his father has an award winning flower garden at his house. The racist moment came when we were talking about his yard and how he can’t get anything to grow on this one patch of lawn. So I say to him, “With your background you should be able to get anything to grow (obviously referring to his father having award winning gardens).” He replies, “Yes, my slave heritage would really help.” Surprisingly we are still friends..

Written by Irvi Torremoro

Irvi Torremoro is an Austinite by way of Las Vegas. She's worked in various outlets in food & beverage and is now focused on writing, eating all the things, talking about Beyonce, and petting all the puppies. She runs flavorandbounty.com, a lifestyle blog about people in the service industry.