AITA for telling my roommates gf that she’s not woke if she’s wrong

A Redditor recounted tensions with their roommate’s girlfriend, who repeatedly imposed stereotypes about their Chinese heritage in misguided attempts to “help them embrace their culture.”

After the Redditor called her out for being wrong and told her she wasn’t truly “woke,” the situation escalated into a heated argument. Was the Redditor justified in their response, or did they handle it poorly? Read the original story below to learn more:

‘ AITA for telling my roommates gf that she’s not woke if she’s wrong’

Husband (28M) & I (25F) are ethnically Chinese from a SEA country living overseas. We rent a house with SO’s college friend who moved his gf (Anna) in during lockdown & she’s been with us ever since (with landlord’s permission & she pays her share of bills). They’re not Asians, which matters. Anna was initially nice, but started acting very weirdly a month after she moved in:

1. Telling SO & I that we can practice our ‘real’ religion (which apparently is Buddhism, not Christianity even though SO & I come from Christian families). She even bought incense (which gives me migraines) & a random Buddha statue. We politely explained to her that we’re not Buddhists, but she continued to insist & promised that she didn’t mind.

2. Telling SO & I that we can speak our ‘real’ language cause she overheard SO’s family talking to us in a mix of English & Cantonese. I explained to her that I can’t speak Cantonese (SO can) even though I can understand it. She was, for some reason, really disappointed in me & said that I was throwing my heritage away. Plot twist: my own father is only comfortable speaking English.

3. Buying raw internal organs for SO & I to cook, even though we don’t eat those. I told her we don’t eat that (not our thing), & she was again disappointed. She told us she read that there were lots of nice recipes & maybe we haven’t found the right one to remind us of home. SO told her he’s never eaten it ever in his life, & I’ve never liked it.

She was really upset, but had to toss it since no one was gonna eat it Chinese New Year was when things got really really weird. She started ordering ‘decorations’. I wouldn’t mind, but she had ordered hell notes (the ones burned for deceased ancestors).

I immediately told her to stop pasting them all over the walls because they were weirding me out. She ordered banners with SO & my name on it (some bastardisation of our *legal* English names) but they were written on white banners (again, for deceased people).

I told her to please take it down. She got upset (again), but then ordered kabuki masks. I told her that those masks were not Chinese, & she just snapped. She started yelling at me that I should be helping her & not critiquing what she was doing. I told her:. 1. She never asked

2. CNY is not a big deal to me, so I wasn’t planning on decorating but if she had asked, I would have helped. 3. She never asked.  I told her I don’t understand her fixation with us. She said she wanted to surprise me & SO, that we’ve been so ‘colonised’ we’ve forgotten our roots, & that we should be embracing our culture.

I told her it was a nice gesture, but she needs to stop forcing stereotypes down our throats. She could have just asked & she’s not being woke when she’s getting everything wrong. She burst into tears & brought in her bf.

He understood where I was coming from, but thought I could have been nicer. SO stands by me, & now things have been tense, but I’ve been tolerating this for a while now & it was getting on my nerves.

See what others had to share with OP:

LMGooglyTFY −  NTA. Not woke? She’s straight up r**ist. Ask her if she’d be buying you beans and a sombrero if you were Puerto Rican. Seriously though, she needs a frank talk about what racism is. Edit: Since it needs to be said, yes, I know sombreros are Mexican and not Puerto Rican. I said this because OP received a Japanese Kabuki mask.

SuperVillain85 −  NTA. “…. so colonised we’ve forgotten our roots & should be embracing our culture.” If someone said that to me (I’m of Indian heritage, born and raised in the UK), I’d tell them to f*** off. That’s personal to me, and so not something that a relative stranger gets to judge about me.

NaryaGenesis −  NTA. You’re a hell of a lot nicer than I am. I would have snapped A LOT sooner. I ABSOLUTELY DETEST people thinking they know more about your OWN culture and acting ALL woke when they’re A)annoying and B) ignorant

kxaltli −  NTA. She repeatedly ignored that you and your SO were not the stereotypical people she assumed you were in favor of attempting to bulldoze you with the way she decided things should be. Your reaction is understandable. And tbh she sounds less “woke” and more “I did a five second Google search for this topic and now I’m an expert”.

BoredAgain0410 −  NTA – she wants to pretend she’s so “woke” yet she instantly turns to White Woman Tears when she doesn’t get her way telling other people how their culture is done.

[Reddit User] −  NTA. Love how she’s white-splaining how to be Asian. What a d**bass

HoldingThunder −  Nat. Your roommate is r**ist. Treating anyone differently (positive in or negative) based on their race….is r**ist. They are clearly overcompensating for how they truely feel about Asians now, or in the past.

edit- there are some terrible typos (I want to say it was all because I was on mobile), but mostly because I was still 90% asleep. Too lazy to fix, at least y’all realized what I was saying.

InsideSympathy7713 −  Holy White Savior Complex Batman! NTA, almost all of the worlds culture is a result of some form of i**asion or colonization, hell England at one point was a very colonized land, between the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings.

I love how the White woke just assume anyone who isn’t white is so incapable of understanding where their culture comes and all choices they make aren’t theirs because of “colonialism”. Its perfectly acceptable to look at where your culture comes from, the good and the bad, and accept it for what it is because all of that is what makes your culture unique.

who_cares95 −  NTA – she’s r**ist. Also, I’m also SEA and celebrate Chinese New Year, and plastering hell notes on the walls of your house and writing your names on banners for dead people is not only pretty m**bid, it is inviting bad luck into your home.

Kerlysis −  What did I just read.

Do you think the Redditor’s frustration was warranted, or should they have handled the situation more diplomatically? How would you approach someone who imposes their ideas about your culture? Share your thoughts and opinions below!