Yeah, I’d like to believe that about my own family, too. Unfortunately it’s just not true. Bigotry doesn’t have to be visible to you to exist.
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It’s a known fact that those biases are often unexamined and unconcious, even among those of us who try to be aware. Our culture and society is steeped in racism and misogyny, and it takes a lot of concious effort and thought to go against it.
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You might be correct about your family, but you’re wrong to generalize it out to mine. You’d be a bigot yourself if you insisted on doing that.
One example.
My cousin is female, and in her early 60s. She ran away from home when she was a teenager and went to India for a few years and lived in a cave with a Guru - and no white people. She speaks one of the (many) Indian languages fluently. When she came home eventually, she got a college degree in English, figuring she had some experience teaching English at that point. Finding no gainful work in that specialty, she apprenticed as a plumber and eventually gained her Master’s rating, the first woman to do so in her area. She’s been married twice, once to a Lithuanian. Meanwhile, my college-age daughter is black, and my sister’s teenage son is Puerto Rican (using the common parlance of the USA, not endorsing it) and both of them visibly so. My cousin delights in them both, and always has, and I would expect her to sacrifice herself to save them just as she would any other younger family member.
This isn’t a fairy story, this is real life. People aren’t like the demonized cardboard cutouts we would like them to be. My cousin would never, ever vote for Hillary Clinton for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with racism, bigotry, mysogyny or xenophobia, and she knew that only Trump could beat Clinton, so she voted for him.
She absolutely is exactly what some people mean when they say “deplorables”. She is rural, anti-big-government, white, middle-class, older, et cetera. And she has not a racist or misogynist bone in her body; I would know.
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Over Thanksgiving dinner ask her if she’d vote for him again. If not T’day observant any other dinner will do.
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But you repeat yourself.
In real life people have voted for, and continue to support, a bigoted, misogynistic, incompetent lunatic. Actions speak louder than words. Luckily, after this Tuesday, all the idiots that support him aren’t going to be enough if the democratic party recognizes the political trends and goes forward instead of staying with the same old neolibs.
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Will do! I think she’ll be in Florida for Thanksgiving but I’ll be in touch during the winter holidays at some point.
I have another rural cousin (also not racist or mysogynist) who was vehemently pro-Trump, and not just anti-Clinton, and she has just recently changed her tune. But it took the actions of President Trump himself to make that happen, it certainly wasn’t due to Trump’s opposition.
So if you voted for Clinton, then you personally stand for everything I can lay at her feet? You might not like that, my friend… for one thing, I can blame you personally for Trump’s presidency, if that’s how you roll.
There are many many people who voted for Trump who would certainly consider themselves the furthest thing from personally racist or misogynist, and I believe them.
Unfortunately, they decided they were comfortable enough with a candidate who is quite clearly both racist and misogynist to endorse them to lead the country, and that’s on them.
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Given the way you phrased that, I entirely agree.
I believe people should accept responsibility for their poor decisions. That belief includes people I like and respect and people who thought they were “voting for the lesser evil”. This belief has occasionally gotten me in trouble on these boards, because it’s been seen as victim blaming.
There are plenty of young, smart, charismatic, principled people in US politics. But they’re mostly a long way left of the Democrats.
The distortion of elite US politics isn’t just a war of rich vs poor or white vs black. It’s also about old vs young.
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This is the point I’ve tried to make in the past. I see people with various reasons for supporting Trump: Some ARE bigots; some just hated Hillary more; some hate the established politicians, or the press. I have a relative who loves Trump because she is a major conspiracy theorist and thinks he is the only one who will save us from the Shadow Government. Go figure.
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I apologize for the way that was worded. Of course I know nothing about your family other than what you have revealed here (I remember you talking about a number of adoptions and interracial family members). What I intended to say @nungesser put much more eloquently. Damn near everyone of every race, creed and religion, carries prejudices whether they are informed by incidences in their past, carried on from previous generations or discovered in a subreddit. The people who most vehemently deny their prejudices are, in my experience, often the most blinded to them.
I can’t comment upon your family, but I personally had to do a lot of emotional unpacking to get to the point where I could recognize bigotry within my own family. This self-examination has served to expose the prejudices that were imparted and still reside within me. It is shockingly difficult to fully shake off any vestige of a lifetime of instilled casual bigotry. I don’t even know if it’s possible to fully purge them, or if the best case is simply to acknowledge them and recognize when they’re present and informing my judgement.
It is also incredibly easy for those pointing out prejudice to both seem and to feel that they are somehow immune themselves. Years ago in a HS class I made the case that all people are prejudiced and that we wouldn’t really get anywhere by calling people “racist”. Now I see the folly of that argument as I wasn’t aware of just how virulent and active racism is in those people who are directly impacted by it the most. However, I think the core point still stands; we are all taught prejudice and it is on each of us to honestly examine the sources and implications in our own thoughts and actions.
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Accepted! I am a poor writer so I understand how that can happen.
I didn’t; color-line racism was open and outspoken in my mother’s family in my youth. I’m proud to have been a part of fixing that, but really it was my mother who made the real breakthrough, and I think your experience would resonate very deeply with her.
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I see what you did there.
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Trump’s base will always love him, and do not care what he promised
Oh I think they do care that he made certain promises… they just don’t care that he has no intention of delivering on those promises.
That’s an interesting point, and I think you’re right. I can remember someone saying that he knew Trump was lying when he said he’d bring coal mining jobs back, but at least by telling that lie Trump was willing to show some acknowledgement of the plight of impoverished coal towns. He said none of the other candidates would even show enough respect or consideration to come out and lie to him, and he was sure as hell not going to vote for anyone who was going to ignore him.
I do not agree with or espouse the above point of view, but merely relay it. And this relates to something others have said here, though - Bernie Sanders, whatever else you might say about him (like, he’s way too old for the presidency, for example) did speak to everyone and not just urban elites. If the Democratic Party runs a left-liberal populist like Sanders instead of a neocon like Clinton or Obama, they could beat Donald Trump next time around.
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