Dan's friends were unsure about his bride Sandy on MAFS. Then she opened her mouth.

Whether you like it or not, reality TV show Married At First Sight is once again dominating conversations in Australia. From Harrison's alleged "secret girlfriend" to Jesse's very long list of everything he hates about women, we are only two episodes in and already things are looking pretty scandalous and dramatic.

ISN'T IT GREAT?

But on a more serious note, we need to talk about Sandy and Dan. 

Sandy and Dan. 

More specifically, we need to talk about how Dan's very white friends reacted to a not-so-white Sandy.

Upon entering the wedding hall, which was filled with peacock and elephant statues and LOTS of red (for us Asians, red is a lucky colour), Dan's friends were taken aback.

"OH MY GOD."

"This is... not what I expected."

"Wow! It is a bit over the top."

"Has Dan seen this?"

"It's got to be like Thai or like Indian or something."

"Dan doesn't know what he's in for. I don't know if this is what he signed up for either."

And then when Sandy's friends walked in, Dan's friend whispered, "Oh my god, I told you."

*Confusion*

"I think my biggest concern is him accepting me," Sandy said in her voiceover. "Because I'm expecting someone who is not Indian. And sometimes people judge a book by its cover."

As she met her groom at the altar of sorts, there were more comments from Dan's friends.

"She's not what I expected."

"I'm shocked."

"Yeah, no, I wasn't expecting this, that's for sure."

"It's quite... unusual."

And then Sandy read her vows. In it, she was funny, self-deprecating, warm, raw, and engaging. Her Aussie accent rang clear and true.

You could practically see the wheels turning in the minds of Dan's friends.

"Oh, she's cool."

"That's beautiful."

"You go, girl."

"Oh, I love her."

"She's amazing."

Let me tell you - watching this scene was hard. I winced and grimaced throughout.

If it meant nothing to you, then you've likely never experienced casual racism. Granted, it's harder to spot this form of racism because it is so common and of course, not as overt. When someone says, "I don't like Indian people", it's easy to go, "You're racist." But when someone says, "This is not what I expected", it sounds innocent. Heck it even sounds logical, right?

But the undercurrent of that statement is: "This is different to what I know. And I don't like it because I don't understand it."

What was even worse was watching as Dan's friends became supportive of Sandy only after she'd proven herself to be, well, "white". She spoke English really well, and her accent was true-blue. In the blink of an eye, she went from unknown alien to acceptable human.

Can you imagine if Sandy had an Indian accent? If she wasn't self-deprecating and funny, lightly teasing her own culture?

Because that's what you have to do when you're a person of colour in a westernised world. You have to dumb down the "bad bits" of your culture, and heighten the romantic bits. Let's not talk about our "stinky Asian food", let's talk about the spirituality of the East. Let's not talk about "Asian toxic masculinity", let's talk about our cute grandmothers.

I call it "dialling down your Asian-ness", an idea and phrase taken from author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, who wrote a short story about a man who could "dial up or down his blackness" in his book Friday Black. The man dialled it down when he went for a job interview and dialled it up when black kids were murdered by a white man. While it's a searing indictment on race relations in the US, the message is not geographically bound. It could easily be an indictment on race relations here in Australia.

Maybe you think I'm reading too much into this situation with Dan and Sandy, and that's okay. That's your prerogative and your right.

But you know what isn't okay?

Casual racism. As uncomfortable as it is to know, it's obvious we have a problem here in Australia.

And we shouldn't be okay with that.

Feature image: Nine Network.