If you’re a racist, say you have minority friends. It helps.

Unsurprisingly, having Asian friends had no effect on the man’s perceived racism when his post had nothing to do with race.

But, visual cue or not, his supposed Asian friendships seemed to help cushion the blow of his anti-Asian statement, resulting in lower perceived racism. A similar pattern emerged for how malicious, offensive and upsetting the participants found the statement: Asian and white participants were less taken aback by the prejudiced statement when the man appeared to have Asian friends.

But that didn’t completely eliminate the perceived racism. Having those friends just made the white man seem less racist than if he had no Asian friends.

Still, the authors conclude, “our findings suggest that minority friendships can potentially be exploited to soften the backlash that is typically expected from observers when prejudice is expressed.”