White privilege and family disputes

I am so bewildered right now that I don’t even know if this post will come out coherently.

My brother came home to San Diego, CA from LA for his birthday today and just got a call from his apartment mate who is locked out. My brother had made the guy two spare keys and was never reimbursed for it, but the guy is mad because my brother locked all the doors when he left. The guy had left both keys in the house when he went out because he doesn’t believe in locking doors. Long story short, he blames the whole thing on my brother for locking the doors and locking him out.

My mom chimes in a says, "Well don’t get mad, but he’s Asian. Asians are some of the most arrogant, self-centered…"

And I stopped her saying, OH PLEASE! There are selfish, arrogant people of every race. It really has nothing to do with his skin color that he is being a selfish prig. I tell her it’s more of an entitlement issue that could have originated from any number of sources and she fires back:

"That YOU of all people would stand up for the misogynistic, paternalistic Chinese race/culture/whatever that is DIRECTLY responsible for the mass abortions of millions of female babies is unbelievable."

What does that even have to do with anything? Does she really think all Asian people believe in femicide? And that such a belief makes all Asian people selfish and arrogant?!!!

She and my brother went on to scream and laugh that I am "brainwashed" for saying that this guy’s arrogance can’t just flippantly be attributed to his race and I stormed out of the room cursing. (Not the best method…I know, I know.)

What on earth could I have done or said to better handle this? I just forwarded both of them a link to Peggy McIntosh’s "White Privilege" because it mentions that one aspect of being white is that when you screw up, people don’t jump to attribute it to your race, like they did in the case of my brother’s apt. mate. My mom didn’t even read it, and just retorted with "China and its MALE-FIRST and god-help-you-if-you-aren’t-one policy will NEVER be worse than white culture/society in my book" and how this leads to an "inbred arrogance."

What the HELL do I say to this? It’s so simplistic and ignorant and icomplete that I can’t even believe it right now. Any thoughts? I am furious and confused and would appreciate any insights.

KendallKat