I find the way that some people understand what is and isn't racism mystifying.
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@lienrag @futurebird It may be more perverse, but the “I don’t like super-obvious racism but tolerate the rest” crowd is more insidious. They are, I think, more numerous and mostly surrounded by other white people who won’t challenge their biases. So they don’t vote for “racism” but they vote for “tough on crime” and won’t believe there’s no difference.
@lienrag @futurebird @queenofnewyork or these days: "we just want immigration laws to me enforced and the border secured!"
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@futurebird "Racism is bad. I am not a bad person. Therefore I cannot be a racist. Therefore what I do isn't racism." Many other things can be put in place of racism there, of course.
@RogerBW This brand of ”logical reasoning” seems to be quite common, but is there a name for this cognitive phenomenon?
”I want to perceive myself as a ’good’ person and not a …, so what already I do can’t be …!”
Seems like something a french/german academic in the mid 1900s would probably have coined a term for.
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@josh0 @futurebird YES.
As somebody who's said things and been called out on it.... defensiveness is the first reaction....
... but people *can* learn
(I remember 'way back in high school ... last year in there it was when I thought "but why do I expect all white people on the accelerated track?"@geonz @futurebird in high school we watched a video about a kid who’d moved from a very white place to a less white place and immediately got themself in trouble because they just thought the n word was the word you used to refer to Black people.
This is actually fairly similar to how I first discover the word. Fortunately my parents set me straight immediately (I heard it from a friend who was a little less lucky in his parents views), but if that’s all you’ve ever heard, from people who use it without shame, it’s entirely understandable and reasonable that someone might use it while simultaneously ‘not having a racist bone in their body’.
As you say: the defensiveness is the problem. Recognizing that we’re in the wrong and working to correct the problem is the only way we ever improve. Obviously this is a different problem from the people who legitimately believe in white supremacy…
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@futurebird there's an aspect of how white people react to racism which is more about class signifiers than about justice.
For people like this, racism is crass and impolite and low class. "White trash talk like that. Educated people don't" .
They tend to focus on stereotypical and specific examples of racism, like using certain words or sharing certain images.
They don't challenge the underlying assumptions that create racism.
I think that's why many white people react so badly when you point out their racism.
"you're saying I'm one of *those* people and actually I'm educated and polite! "
@Zumbador I often get this impression from how some people criticise Trump: it’s not about what he’s doing, but just about the aesthetic. He’s crude, and it’s embarrassing to be associated with him. I think a lot of his policies would have been just fine with a lot of Democrats if they’d been implemented by someone else.
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Some of their racism is so off the charts that it fails to register with me. It's just nonsense to me and I don't even feel offended since I can't make sense of what they are doing. It kind of fails to be hurtful and just looks goofy.
Maybe that's what bothers them?
Maybe it's just as simple as "if they will go after this power couple that I perceive as their peers, then nobody is safe".
It could be a hierarchical / caste thing. They didn't see the racism in saying "Haitians will eat your pets" because it was "obviously other nations are inferior and deserve trash talk; it's not serious, it's just how you treat your lessers" kind of shit.
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What is the issue? It's the same thing. It's a prejudice that Black people are primitive and inhuman. Like apes or some animal that attacks your pets. It's the same racism.
Is it that they don't care if it's not powerful people?
Dazzled by the wealth and power of the Obamas and so you can recognize an insult to them but not to some regular blackfolks?
It is really odd and I do not get it.
These things are equal and we only got a retraction for ONE of them. 2/
@futurebird to me the interesting part is how these disingenuous arguments revolving around "what makes you think trump's racist?" disappeared the past year and a half. To me it's a sign of a rare societal unity that considers his racism a fact not worth debating.
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I find the way that some people understand what is and isn't racism mystifying.
TO ME? Saying (lying!) about Black Haitian immigrants "eating cats and dogs" is wildly racist and probably worse than putting the most powerful and untouchable Black American couple in a racist video as apes?
Like both are bad. But the "eating dogs and cats" thing whew! Stinky.
And yet there are these people who were shocked by the video and unmoved by the "cats and dogs" line?
1/
I think that for a lot of obviously racist white people I’ve known they are also strongly attached to hierarchical ways of seeing the world.
So racism against high status Black people is far more upsetting to them than racism against low status Black people. To the point that low status people don’t really count as people to them, often even the white ones.
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For some white people with racism it's like they have a check list. The following things are racism... and NOTHING else:
1. The n word IF said in a MEAN way.
2. Monkeys
3. Watermelon
4. Segregated Water Fountain Signs.Show them a sign that says "No Blacks Allowed" on a changing room at a store and they are like "well that's different... maybe there is a good reason? People steal"
It's is buck wild. Why even pretend that you care about racism at all?
Some of ya'll are so damn strange.
@futurebird Indeed. And the fact that some white people are programmed to reject monkey depictions means that other white people jump on the opportunity to see “See? We told you he’s a racist.” This incident may have been less hurtful but more **useful**.
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For some white people with racism it's like they have a check list. The following things are racism... and NOTHING else:
1. The n word IF said in a MEAN way.
2. Monkeys
3. Watermelon
4. Segregated Water Fountain Signs.Show them a sign that says "No Blacks Allowed" on a changing room at a store and they are like "well that's different... maybe there is a good reason? People steal"
It's is buck wild. Why even pretend that you care about racism at all?
Some of ya'll are so damn strange.
@futurebird There's a second order effect too where "racist" is somehow such a horrible accusation that it's beyond the pale.
It's somehow worse to label something racism than to do the racist things. The media especially is too "polite" to call anything racism outright and it's percolating into regular people's behavior.
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@futurebird There's a second order effect too where "racist" is somehow such a horrible accusation that it's beyond the pale.
It's somehow worse to label something racism than to do the racist things. The media especially is too "polite" to call anything racism outright and it's percolating into regular people's behavior.
@futurebird We get reporting like "It's not clear if Trump knew this post was racist" as if it doesn't count unless he explicitly declared it
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@RogerBW This brand of ”logical reasoning” seems to be quite common, but is there a name for this cognitive phenomenon?
”I want to perceive myself as a ’good’ person and not a …, so what already I do can’t be …!”
Seems like something a french/german academic in the mid 1900s would probably have coined a term for.
I can think of two names for the phenomenon; cognitive dissonance, the more general one.
There’s also a rough sorting of systems of morality — I always get the names wrong — but judging an action based on 1) the consequences, 2) whether it follows a set of rules, or 3) who did it.
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I'm well aware that the kind of person who is "shocked" by the Obamas as apes video, but somehow didn't have the same level of reaction to "cats and dogs" isn't interested in what Black people think. They are mostly worried that "important powerful people" do not think of them as racist. So, even saying this is a little pointless.
But, maybe some of ya'll can ask your uncle or auntie why are ya'll like this? Why?
3/3
@futurebird The timing could be part of it. He has done a lot of unpopular things since then, and people who were willing to cut him some slack may not be anymore. Just a guess though.
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