There’s something within human nature that leads some people to talk about the horrible perceived “defects” in others, but they refuse to accept that those words are in fact racist, misogynist, harmful, etc.
I just recently left a relationship due to emotional abuse that turned physical once. It turned physical because I got in his face and said, “You’ve called me selfish, lazy, worthless, a child, so on, and what is the worst thing I’ve called you?” His response, “An abuser.” And no more than five minutes later tried to push me through a door.
So yeah, same with this racist guy. He does the racist things, but claims he’s not racist - he knows that being a racist is bad (like my ex knows that being an abuser is bad) but they do not understand what racism or abuse actually is.
It’s great that people think being a racist or abuser is bad, but they can’t just convince themselves they aren’t because of their bizarro-world definitions.
Every anti-Islamic Trump supporter I’ve talked to says the same thing: they insist they aren’t racist.
Their logic is simple: in their eyes, since Islam is a religion, and Muslims are just people following it, they aren’t a race. They’re people who’ve chosen a belief system.
Essentially they see themselves the same way we see ourselves when we see a racist, and immediately judge them. “Yes, but we are right”, we might say.
In other words we are prejudiced too.
The guy in this video has basically pre-judged the person he’s interviewing. But do we call him prejudiced?
Is there such a thing as good prejudice? Yes, probably in extreme cases. I would not trust a repeat offender “crime perpetrator” with a “victim profile of perpetrator” I cared for example. Match this to what you hold dear and is deemed illegal by the justice system of your country.
It’s like I can see the forces of normalization in the memes. It’s maddening. Like, I’m watching sites that are pretty moderate like imgur sliding down the drain into regarding the human savegery that trump loves so much becoming absolutely a laughing matter.
There used to be resistance. But now it’s all this:
This is why I don’t like talking to the right wing/conservative/“Christian” people. They always fall back in saying things like that and that’s when I realize I’m wasting my time.
Here in the states, I like to drop the “unpatriotic” card. Because the language of the Right ties up being patriotic with hating Muslims, it’s often interesting to see the resolution of the cognitive dissonance that occurs when people are confronted with the exact opposite idea - that what they are doing is profoundly un-American, and that if they loved this country, they would be willing to die to defend the rights of Muslims to live here in freedom.
He would rather have lower taxes even if it means his actual monthly payments for healthcare and anything else costs him more than his taxes would under a single payer system.
He bragged about how when a (hispanic) woman asked if this was the line for a polling place he and a bunch of others in line told her it wasn’t “her” polling place and she left.
“The conversations are short, usually 10 to 20 minutes long. The canvassers don’t try to build rational arguments for why someone should think one way or another. The goal is to share personal stories about times when the voter and the canvasser felt attacked or discriminated against.”
I didn’t give up at the “I’ll knowingly spend more money on healthcare so socialism doesn’t win” but when he told this story I couldn’t hide my disgust. I told him that was horrifying and against literally everything America stands for and didn’t bother to listen for a response.
We made racism socially unacceptable, and then proceeded to ignore institutional racism on the grounds that well, racists are bad people, and since these are good people, clearly they can’t be racist.
I think we would have been better off letting people hate whoever they wanted, but adopting a zero tolerance policy when it comes to institutional racism and discrimination. Sure- You can be an openly racist cop, but if a black person in your custody gets so much as a chipped nail, it’s going to mean a full blown investigation to prove that race wasn’t a factor there.
That puts the burden on people not to deny that they are racist, but to prove they haven’t done anything racist or let anything happen on their watch. Doing so makes fighting those actions a matter of demonstrable proof, rather than subjective judgments of character. The racist cop would need to treat people of color with kid gloves and document every single second of their interaction, making sure to do everything exactly right, or be taken to the mat for it- Rather than the department just assuming that he must be innocent because obviously the department would never hire a racist. More importantly, accusations of racism then aren’t taken as a personal attack- Which makes the person being accused more likely to listen to criticism, rather than just becoming defensive.
TL:DR: Focusing on the morality rather than on institutional actions, actually allowed people to appeal to morality to excuse those institutional actions.
Another brain-dead white bigot who thinks he’s as clever and dark-skinned as Chris Rock.
I don’t think we’re going to get the re-examination in the next four years, given that one of #nextpresident’s main science and tech advisors spends a lot of time (i.e. more than 5 minutes) defending the concept of “human biodiversity,” the latest buzz phrase for scientific racism. It’s more normalisation of reprehensible and retrograde thinking, the kind that lets yobs like this say “well it’s scientific, innit?”
Agreed, with the caveat that “Muslim” is often a code word for “brown people”. In the UK, “Muslim” is used by the current generation of bigots in much the same way the previous generation of bigots used “Paki”.
Absolutely true. I didn’t intend to say - and do not believe - that racial supremacism is synonymous with racism, although the latter is necessarily a part of the former.
I should note that I was taught by my parents that racism is the process of according special treatment (either good or bad) based on recognition of those physical characteristics we categorize as “racial” traits. In the 60s, when I was taught, the racists my parents opposed were those who accorded especially good treatment to “whites” and especially bad treatment to non-whites. Jews weren’t entirely white yet, at the time, and my parents were openly criticized for their lifelong friendship with a Jewish family and fair treatment of other minorities.
In those days, when racists said “well, the NAACP is a racist organization” people of my parents generation might say “yes, and so is the Saegerbund, but you have to discriminate between some groups if you are going to acknowledge and celebrate heritage or work to solve racial problems. That’s different from spreading hate, and that’s why we support the NAACP, regardless of whether you consider them racist or not.”
Today, when racists say “well, the NAACP is a racist organization” there’s often a response from supposedly anti-hate activists that is composed of… hate. An immediate, aggressive verbal assault based on “you said a bad thing, and you’re bad, and you should feel bad” instead of “I hear you, but here’s a different way to look at it, that can make you part of a better future, because names may be important, but deeds matter more than words.”
I congratulate people in this thread for doing it right! None of you jumped on my head at all!
As long as you get what I’m saying, I must be doing something at least partially right. Nation of Islam is an example of a racist group I dislike (although I wouldn’t paint them with quite the same brush as the World Church of the Creator) just as I usually think of the NAACP as one I like… using the definition of racism that I was taught as a child, that might not conform to definitions that others have been taught more recently.
92% of respondents on debate.org consider the NAACP to be racist. It’s a significant point of view - regardless of whether it offends either of us.
I believe that if people won’t engage with folk taxonomies - if we insist that only our own definition of a word is valid - then communication is dead and thus hate is enabled, supported and increased. Note that the Oxford English dictionary’s definition of racism is considered “too white” by some, apparently (in the link provided) discarding a definition compatible with @anon61221983’s because of the authors skin color. That’s self-defeating behavior. You have to engage, like you guys engaged with me.
I agree on both counts. I’d only add that you have to very meticulously define “racism” and “bad” - so that your listeners don’t hear something different from what you are saying - and you mustn’t preemptively categorize someone as having underhanded motivations and goals simply because they used words that were also used by a person who did have evil motivations. That’s effectively a trap, set by our enemies, who do not want us to convert more people to our way of thinking.
Hmm, looks like my original response to @Chesterfield was deleted? Oh well, I guess aggressive condemnation beats engaged coalition-building yet again, foundering on the rocks of speech policing. I apologize for wasting the time of those who did engage, my fault.
Bear in mind that that’s at least in part because we know you as a generally enlightened fellow. If someone I didn’t know had used the term racist to describe the NAACP, I would lean toward thinking they were trying to wedge in an argument about reverse racism. It’s only because I know you better than that that I was able to avoid confusion. Just something to think about. Yes, lexicons are important, but in charged topics of discussion, I personally always try for as much immediate clarity as possible. Even then I don’t always succeed.
That’s why I posted my comment to him separately (though it looks like that sub-thread survived). I like to keep the dragon treats away from the hospitals and schools
I’ve never put much stock in the “being prejudiced against racists is just as bad as being prejudiced against people of a different race/color/creed” theory.
Nation of Islam is an example of a racist group I dislike (although I wouldn’t paint them with quite the same brush as the World Church of the Creator) just as I usually think of the NAACP as one I like… using the definition of racism that I was taught as a child, that might not conform to definitions that others have been taught more recently.
