dirty turtles

Hello boys and girls, I hope you are all having great days.

Recently I've realized how much I like it when people qualify something stupid that they are about to by beginning the statement with "I'm not ______, but".

For example I recently found myself listening to a conversation that two acquaintances were having. The reason I was being nosey? The conversation started like this:

(key words have been changed in an attempt not to offend any specific race, ethnicity, gender, or culture)

Acquaintance #1: "I'm not racist, but I've noticed there are a lot more dirty Turtles in this area. In hometown, we had a lot of Turtles, but not as many dirty Turtles."

Acquaintance #2: "I'm not racist either, but you're right. The other day at the mall 3 dirty Turtles made me very uncomfortable. I was walking to a store and they didn't move out of my way. I wasn't sure what to do."

Acquaintance #1: "Yeah, dirty Turtles make me uncomfortable to. You can always tell dirty turtles from clean turtles.

Me: "You two know that my wife is half Turtle, right? Her dad's side of the family is from Turtleville."

Acquaintance #1: "I'm sure there clean Turtles right? So that's okay."

Acquaintance #2: "Yeah, clean Turtles are okay."

Me: "Um, I don't know how to respond to that."

They then began talking about politics so I had to leave.