1. The race card. The most American of cards, and often played with panache. It does one of two things. It either makes people, especially white people, really angry, either because it is applied unfairly and there is no terribly effective response, or because it IS apt to the situation, and it makes white people really uncomfortable; or it shuts people up, triggering that “I’m white and I should NOT be in this conversation because I don’t know what to say without sounding stupid” mode. This card is used so often that it comes pre-packaged in tricked decks, but it works.

2. The sensitive white dude card. This card doesn’t often work, but sometimes, when you play it BEFORE someone lays down the race card, it can mitigate the latter’s effects. You’ll recognize this form of argument when a member of a majority group uses a random life experience to try and prove that they understand what living as a member of a minority group means. Here’s an example: So I went to South Korea recently. And when I was walking around Itaewan, I noticed people were staring at me. I noticed that the waiters in cafes looked at me with extra scrutiny. I noticed that when I went into stores that were not specifically marked for foreigners, I was followed by the staff. I actually felt…white. I felt different than everyone else. And it was disconcerting. If I were arguing with someone and I wanted to sympathize with an experience I could not, by rights, sympathize with, I’d then say something like, “And while my experience is by NO means like that experienced by African-Americans, I can begin to understand what it is like to exist in a place where you aren’t the default option and people treat you differently simply because of who you are.”