system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: 'I have black friends' is not necessarily poor evidence against a person's purported racist nature.

For clarity, I'm not saying it's *never* a bad excuse; clearly, there are times when people who have been accused of racism play fast and loose with definitions and drag 'friends' into their defences who perhaps shouldn't be classed in that way. But, in instances where the individual truly does have people of colour in their life, in relationships which would mutually be considered to be of a friendly nature, I think this reasoning can be sound.

There are a couple of reasons for this: the first is that I don't believe that considering a person inferior to oneself on any basis is grounds for friendship. Friendships are, or at least should be, relationships between people who consider each other equals and are willing to help one another to achieve each's respective goals. Both of these conditions are invalidated by the presence of a superiority complex on someone's part, at which point whatever relationship does exist cannot, or should not, be considered a 'friendship'.

The second is that, simply, true racists *don't* have friends of colour. There are no proud members of the Ku Klux Klan walking arm-in-arm with people of colour at BLM protests; they wouldn't even give these people the time of day. This is for the simple fact that the world-views of a racist and of a person of colour are incompatible; one cannot hate the other and still consider them a 'friend', unless as stated they are bending the meaning of that word.

It's impossible to tell, truly, how often this defence is employed disingenuously. Maybe it's 90% of the time and this point of view is something that would hardly ever be able to be applied in the real world. But in essence, I believe that someone who has actually initiated and developed meaningful relationships with people of colour cannot be considered a racist, because if they were, these relationships simply could not exist.

I'm here because people seem to write this excuse off under any circumstances, dismissing it as a harmful cliche that has no basis in logic. It is for this reason that I think my view may be flawed.

So, that's my view; now let's change it.
gpt
If someone perceives black friends *as exceptions* to some racist idea about black people, then this is little more than an ad-hoc accommodation of contrary evidence, as opposed to a solid defense against accusations made; it's certainly not incorporation of evidence into some new, freshly developed ideas.

Friendships are not necessarily about equal standing between two individuals, not at all. How else do people become friends across age, positions of influence, levels of income? Friendships can be about *ignoring differences*, not just finding common ground.

Ignoring differences allows you to make exceptions to racist ideas. Finding common ground is not guaranteed to refute racist ideas because there are too many aspects to cover.

Obviously it's hard to tell if someone means it or not or fully understands the breadth and depth of opinions held and implications that follow. Either way: usage of this defense ***in particular, rather than any other/better defense*** is surely not a good indicator either way. At that point the person looks like an ignorant fool, which is a typical profile for racists.