Getting defencive ("but I'm not racist") centres your own experience and takes the focus off of the real issue: racism and your friend's experience with it. If you're white, accept that you live a different racial reality than people of colour and know that "it may be hard to believe something you have not experienced personally," wrote social workers Trinh Mai, LCSW, and Megan Jean Whitlock, LCSW, both of the University of Utah. Is your first reaction to rule out racism? If so, ask yourself why and how your experience as a non-AAPI person is informing that.