Talking shit about my ethnicity? Taste your own medicine

I live in a diverse country and work with many nationalities.

At a house party, a colleague from Iran (let’s call him L), mentioned “Sputnik”. I, a Latina woman, asked what it was.

“OMG, you don’t know what Sputnik was? Latinos are so self-centered they only study their own country. Do you even know what the Cold War was?” Said him condescendingly out loud in front of everyone.

In vain I tried to explain that I did study the Cold War, that Latino education is more Eurocentric than I’d like, and that I just didn’t know that was the name of the first satellite of the space race. He wouldn’t listen.

I tried to speak to him in private a week later. I told him I didn’t like his comment etc. to which he replied “Why don’t you just admit you don’t know politics already?”

A year later we are at another house party playing “mime game”. The mime is Russian so I jokingly said every Russian word I know, like “Glasnost” and “Perestroika” I learned at school. “What’s that?” Asks L.

I couldn’t resist saying “OMG you don’t know what Glasnost and Perestroika are? Iranians are so self centered. Do you even know what the Cold War was?”.

He complained I was a bad person who held grudge for no reason, but I didn’t care. It just felt so good.