I recently found out that my “friendly” coworkers are actually racist
I’m black, these two coworkers (Asian) have been friendly to my face and we got along well enough to go on a night out together.
They were rooting for me and trying to set me up with someone because I’m single which I found cute and when I pointed at my type (I have many types but one of my favorites is tall black dark skinned men with shoulder length locks) one of them told me that she finds black men scary and the other one agreed.
There was no proper explanation when I asked why are black men scary to them.
I couldn’t believe that I had to explain that everyone is different and black men come with all sorts of different personalities such as everyone else. It was just the 3 of us so I was the minority in this argument. I was left so frustrated with this conversation and they weren’t open to change their minds about this.
This is a deal breaker when it comes to friendships but the thing is we work together so I still have to try and act normal while in my head I’m side eyeing them both.
During the same night out they did listen to my type and pointed at every single guy that fit the description but out of a small bunch there was only one that I found attractive. They pointed at the same guy that I wasn’t interested in about five times.
Mind you, they weren’t drunk and only had two drinks but kept forgetting what he looked like and pointed back at him again, it was almost comical but I was annoyed.
How would you address this situation and what would you do?
Do you consider this as racist, ignorant, cultural differences or am I tripping for being so mad? I’m the only black person in my workplace and probably the only one they’ve ever hung out with.