I love that episode… could work.
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I hope that wasn’t a typo.
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Nope! I was wondering how long it would take until someone noticed.
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It makes me sad to see Derek seeking distance from his former cohorts. Understandable, certainly, but former racists make the best evangelists to current racists. Don and his hate brigade can ignore Obama, can ignore Hilary, can ignore the culture at large, but they can’t easily ignore their own. If ever there was a way to make up for his past behavior, it is this message of evangelism: take those who fear “white genocide” down the same path you went down. Invite some of 'em to shabbat. It’s practically your duty.
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Sure, but he can also open himself up to physical danger as well.
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and why the UK Government’s current policy of extending faith schools is SO WRONG.
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Everyone is in physical danger from these folks. I’m not advocating for him to start fights, but he risks much less in having these conversations than anyone else does, and his narrative has the power to reach others within the organization who can recognize the things that motivated the change - those people can dismiss a WaPo article, but they can’t so easily dismiss a conversation they have with him.
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One of the things I liked most about this article is that it bestowed humanity on all of its main subjects. Don Black certainly holds wretched views, but the fact that he’s a father who still obviously loves his son and wants to maintain a relationship with him allows some sliver of hope that what happened to Derek as a result of acceptance and goodwill might someday happen to him, too.
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I’d argue some are in more physical danger than others, though.
I’m not sure that’s quite true. White supremacists do not treat traitors well, from what I understand, especially the more criminal underside of the movement (which the “respectable” members of the movement publicly disavow, while no doubt privately cultivating their relationships - Stormfront being a perfect example of that dynamic). He’s unlikely to even get a chance to open that conversation, I’d think.
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Huh - was it any good? I would have thought I’d have heard of it more… I remember when it was GOING to be released, not afterwards.
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While I agree with that sentiment, we also need to remember that It’s not always possible to change someone’s core beliefs, especially ones they have invested a great deal of time and effort into seeing as central to their identity. Sometimes you just have to wait for the hatemongers to get old and die.
Of course the hatemongers want to pass on their values and beliefs to their children. Which is why they spend such a huge amount of time and effort building and shoring up thought bubbles/ cultural echo chambers.: To keep their children from realizing that those evil outsiders they’ve been conditioned to shun are not actually so bad, and to prevent them from exposure to alternative thought systems.
The good thing is that thought bubbles only work as long as you stay inside them – especially if they are built out of bullshit, they can be very fragile once the children grow up and start moving through the wider world. For instance, many children of fundamentalist Christians abandon their faiths once they leave their homeschooled environment, enter college, and realize that creationism is bullshit, the Bible doesn’t actually say the things they were taught to think it says, etc.
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I hear what you’re saying. The problem is that when you take the time to examine in a nuanced and empathetic way the reasons they support him, most of the time you end up with some form of racism. It’s usually not Don Black’s extremism, but rather expressions of white entitlement to this country’s money and power structures. Often it’s seasoned with (perhaps inchoate and unknowing) references to anti-Semitic canards about who controls the media and banks and to “human biodiversity” (AKA racism in a lab coat) and to broad-brush stereotypes. That becomes the connective tissue from mainstream politics to the alt-right and to hardcore white nationalists.
His GOP supporters really have to consider whether they want to join their candidate in eagerly accepting the support of white nationalists and, to a certain degree, in accepting their toxic premise of the country being threatened by a “white genocide” even in watered-down form. Getting them to think about that is why it was so important for Clinton to call out half of his supporters for what they are: a basket of deplorables.
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That’s true - but ALL of us have some bias. Some of it may not be solely raced based. It is only fairly recently in human history where a bias against people based on race or sex etc has become socially unfashionable. While it is deplorable, it is also distinctly human.
Look at it this way, these opinions don’t happen in a vacuum. Racists, sexist, etc see bad things, filter out the good things, and form these negative opinions. In their minds these people are completely deplorable and unsalvageable.
But then we apply these same standards to these racists and sexists. Sure their opinion is wrong, but we have blindly labeled them deplorable and unsalvageable as well. We are using the same thought process to hate. Which just begets more hate. Then you have meme wars that just reinforce how horrible the other side is, and before you know it the gap in understanding is wider and wider.
I finally listened to the “You are Not So Smart” podcast on deep canvasing. And IMHO this technique and others like it are what is going to make us come together. Not writing people off as deplorable humans with no hope of redemption and understanding.
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I think you’re right on the money with much of this. I’ll add the caveate that white supremacy is much more built into our society than Christian supremacy (although there is strong and obvious overlap). There are plenty of alternatives to that sort of Christian supremacists bubble, while white supremacy as a world view is reinforced in our culture in rather subtle ways, even as it’s not an acceptable political stance.
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Of course, but not all of us are letting our inherent but not virulent bias drive us toward supporting a candidate who panders to and accepts the support of the alt-right and white nationalist movements. Clinton’s statement was not writing off ALL of his supporters as open racists, but asking the half of his supporters who don’t consider themselves as such to reconsider voting for a candidate who has the support of Don Black and David Duke and others who hold deplorable views.
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The level of support surprises me/doesn’t surprise me. At first I was surprised, and then I remembered how easy people dismiss negative information, exaggerate good information, and make excuses for anything they normally wouldn’t. Especially in politics. I am not being glib when I say it is sad, but in my 20+ years of political awareness, we see this over and over - the half truths and lies all mixed up to justify an opinion.
Which is why the christian thought bubble is so much more elaborate (with it’s own non-sinful music groups, book publishing enterprises, etc, etc). Because there’s so much less reinforcement from the wider culture. There’s endless cop shows on TV that portray black people as inherently criminal. There’s hardly any TV shows that portray non-fundamentalists as depraved sinners.
In the context of a racist culture, It takes getting to know people who aren’t white to puncture the white supremacist thought bubble. As long as schools and neighbourhoods in the US remain highly segregated, you can chip away at the edges of racism but you can’t destroy it.
Puncturing the fundamentalist thought bubble is a lot simpler - all it takes, for many children of fundamentalists, is exposure to real biology or real biblical studies. Or meeting a real gay person (a lot easier to do since they aren’t segregated like black people). Or any of a dozen other things.
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It’s long. Like longer than the Baroque Cycle long. I have the first volume but well. Disorganized is the first word that comes to mind. I haven’t finished the first volume yet.
It’s all part of the great Zionist conspiracy!
/sarcasm
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That doesn’t bode well. Long is ok if it is interesting and engrossing. He wrote it later in life, yes? So is is like your rambling grandpa bitching about everything with a tinge of dementia?
