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But I'm on your *side*.....or, why clever people can't be racist.

  
  

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Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
12:39 / 08.03.02
Just a few thoughts...

Wiggas are obviously beneath our contempt, white trash uncritically coopting the appurtenances of blackness without any attempt to examine the ideological or ethical implications of their actions. They are ungainly, absurd, and parasitic.

What about the college girls with the dream catcher, or the brand consolidator with dreadlocks? What, for that matter, about the feeling of slight nervousness so many middle-class white people seem to feel when a group of young black men is walking towards them. Or indeed the exec who never invites his gay coworker and his boyfriend to post-work bull-sessions, because he sincerely and honestly believes, (or is sincere and honest in his belief that he sincerely and honestly believes) that he is just not the party type?

Point being, is there "invisible" discrimination , which may in fact be invisible, or at least perfectly *justifiable* and thus *reasonable*, among the "good guys"? How can it be detected? How can it be battled? And hey, is it even a good idea to battle? If people are clever and sensitive enough to behave in what they deem to be a considerate manner, what right have others to criticise their conduct? And where does coexistence become collaboration?

Was thinking about this partly as a result of the "Wiggas" thread, but also because of a bunch of other things...f'r example, Illfigure was excoriated for suggestion that some "fags" may like prison. But then....I recalled that somebody once observed that her boyfriend believed that the world could essentially be separated into "dudes" and "fags", and that he could spot a "fag" from a hundred paces. Faced with a certain "your boyfriend is a twart" backlash, she responded "Oh well, obviously I disagree with him....."

Likewise, the brouhahah about whether or not it was a societally instinctive airbrushing of queerness to ask "Are you married", or to reapond with hostility to critiques of that question, on another thread.

So, lots of faintly incoherent thoughts, there, but I guess the question is - is "prejudice" or more precsiely the identification of prejudice a class-based privilege, and how does one best attempt to deal with the "othering" of prejudice.

Thoughts?

[ 09-03-2002: Message edited by: Tannhauser ]
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:47 / 08.03.02
God, my head is broken...

I think you have some very good points. Yes. Must form thoughts...
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
12:57 / 08.03.02
Dealing with the 'othering' of prejudice... I don't know. I am conscious of doing it - e.g. with the Paulsgrove riots, I realised that I was guilty of disguising a basic reaction of 'ugh' (directed at the rioters) by pretending that I was principally bothered about the issues surrounding the 'outing' of possible paedophiles on the estate. I don't mean that I didn't care out those issues - just that my reaction, and I think the reaction of a lot of middle-class commentators, was based on a feeling bordering on disgust for the mob... and I realised that if I was a mother living on a sink estate I might not be too keen on the idea that an ex-con who had been imprisoned for molesting children might be living round the corner from me... I can still say that I think that the mob was wrong, but I'm more aware of some of the issues *on my side* which have led me to that conclusion...

Not sure where this leaves me though. Thinkling.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
13:04 / 08.03.02
I think that the "left,"(those on "your" side) if I may put it broadly and vaguely, seems to suffer from the notion that the attitudes and therefore actions of human beings are infinitely perfectable. That is, with enough information and self-awareness, a person will definitely act in a way that is least likely to harm another person.

This notion of the perfectability of individuals extends necessarily to the perfectability of society, where the members of a society, given a modicum of education and freedom, will definitely choose to act the "right" way.

Whether or not this is a hold over from enlightenment humanism is beside the point (and I'm sure many on the left would take umbrage at the suggestion that their particular "utopia" owes anything to the "Enlightenment" [or that there was even such a thing as the enlightenment, etc.])

I think such a utopian belief underlies all attempts to eradicate "prejudice" and "inequality," and while that seems like a wonderful goal it ignores a component of human behavior: perversity (or irrationality).

Perversity, as I would define it in the case, is the function of the unconsciousness that undermines or best intentions. Not quite the "death drive" of Freud, it makes us do stupid things like saving a potful of money instead of paying off high interest rate credit cards, buy over-priced fashion footwear, and mix grain and grape while on the piss.

Now what does this have to do with "wiggers" or heteronormatism? Even those of us who are most well-informed or most sympathetic to the cause of others are liable at times to say or do things that make a mockery of what we stand for, such as refer to people as "special" in an attempt to equate their mental prowess with the handicapped.

This "perversity" of human nature seem to me to be hardwired and unavoidable. I'd rather concentrate on minimizing harm than censure everyone for every stupid little remarks they may or may not make. I don't think people should be jumped on if their "intentions" are honest (and I think it's fairly easy to tell this). Of course, this may be Zen for "I like to kitcshily call silly things I don't like 'gay'."

I'd be happy to explain any incoherencies in the above after another cup of coffee.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
13:08 / 08.03.02
Oh, and as for the "othering" of prejudice, it comes to mind as a facile answer that the human brain is a machine built to operate on heuristics (rules of thumb, guessitmates) rather than on full sets of data, so a certain amount of unconscious prejudice is innate, I think.

However, that doesn't mean there are forms of prejudice "beyond the pale" which are good to "other" (god I don't want to use that as a verb. it's the academic version of "party" as a verb). An example of this would be the truly horrible Bobby Fischer interview reprinted in the latest Harpers where he hopes for a takeover of the U.S. involving the extermination fo the Jews.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
13:13 / 08.03.02
Hmmm.

Problem there is that it seems to come to, rather as, if I recall correctly, the girlfriend of fagdar boy then added, "that's just his way"

And, if you accept "perversity and dirrationality" as "just people's way", and thus any apparently "isty" outbursts as inevitable corrolaries of the human condition and not to be considered *actually* "isty", one is surely setting up a doctrine of infinite excusability (I like this person, therefore their intentions are for my purposes good, therefore their actions can be excused as "just human nature")?
 
 
Ethan Hawke
13:24 / 08.03.02
Surely some people get a pass, though, even now? For instance, say my 92 year old grand father makes a remark about Puerto Ricans and how they're bad drivers or something. Am I going to take him to task for being a racist even though he's a good guy, yet too old to really change his ways?

(actually, the prejudiced older relative path is a fruitful one to explore, like IIRC Ganesh's elderly aunt.)

(Oh, and I'm actually kind of *down* for "infinite excusability" since part of my Christian upbrining that I can't seem to shake is that any and all crimes/sins should/can be forgiven.)

[ 08-03-2002: Message edited by: todd ]
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:30 / 08.03.02
quote:Originally posted by todd:
Surely some people get a pass, though, even now? For instance, say my 92 year old grand father makes a remark about Puerto Ricans and how they're bad drivers or something. Am I going to take him to task for being a racist even though he's a good guy, yet too old to really change his ways?

I think in a situation like this I probably wouldn't take my own grandfather to task, but I hope I'd be able to be honest about my motives - basically, cowardice (fear of causing an awkward social situation and being seen as disrespectful).

Which is off topic in a way - the point is, I don't think "x is too old to change their ways" is a good reason not to disagree with someone. I also think that the "he's a good guy" idea is somewhat unhelpful - we need to stop seeing racists as one set of people and good people as another...
 
 
Ethan Hawke
13:38 / 08.03.02
But when do you stop being *just* racist/prejudiced and start being a *bad* person? When you drag someone behind your truck because their blacks? When you fail to make eye contact with a black homeless guy panhandling? When you deride someone for being a "wigger"?

I think there is obviously some sort of hierarchy of behavior where some offenses are excusable as lapses amongst *clever* people and some offenses are *not* ever excusable.
 
 
bitchiekittie
14:24 / 08.03.02
ooh, I am in way over my head. which has never kept me from tossing my two cents in, has it?

there is a sliver of "prejudice" (defined for my purposes as "opinion formed beforehand") in every action - based on experience, education (imperfect or not), environment, and past history. to some degree assumptions need to be made as to what is appropriate for every situation and circumstance in order to respond "properly".

a mildly sexual comment made in the company of friends who, in the past, proved comfortable with such comments may be perfectly acceptable, while the same comment made in the workplace would not be.

the problem comes when "prejudice" turns to bias (for my purposes "an unfair preference for or dislike of something". yes, I did use a dictionary in order to keep from being stomped to hell by my own terminology). I dont think you should ignore it, in most situations. again, there are some that dont need to be challenged - calling your grandad a racist as hes coming back from his 3rd stroke probably just borders on assholery. but people generally unaware will remain unaware unless you call them on it.

and the trick of that is twofold: doing it in a constructive way (attacking someone isnt conducive to introspection, only immediate self-defense), and making sure your own personal biases arent playing a part in your feelings

Im still working madly on that last bit
 
 
The Planet of Sound
14:57 / 08.03.02
Haus, isn't this just a rather overly wordy version of the same debate that's been had in 'Abstraction and Terror'? Or is it not? Or, to put it another way, is it not, not?
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
15:02 / 08.03.02
Planet: No, it isn't. The two overlap at a very specific point. That is all.
 
 
bitchiekittie
17:05 / 08.03.02
actually, theres a third bit: the third, and maybe the most problematic issue, is if the person is going to be receptive. some people just arent ready, or they are thick as pig shit, either way. or the timing is wrong. if someone is all riled up and defensive, you arent going to open their eyes too damn easily

but it shouldnt stop you from trying, eh?
 
 
grant
17:39 / 08.03.02
Flyboy, there's a big difference between fear and respect - and I think that difference is central to the problem explored in this thread.
I think it has to do with value-judgement: a prejudice in the "heuristic" sense is (mostly) value neutral, while a prejudice in the "bias" sense is value laden.
Both are barriers to an accurate perception of reality, but the value laden (fear of/desire for) is more apt to get ugly, more prone to dehumanization of the target.
On the other hand, respect *may* be based on simplistic caricatures (heuristics), but it's generally an absence of action, a blankness, a polite distance from the other.
Respect can be cold, but for some folks, it's as good as it gets.
 
 
alas
17:46 / 08.03.02
we tend to focus on overt racism, i think, because it's easy to spot and most middle class white folks don't engage in overtly racist acts or make overtly racist comments. what we do do (that voodoo that we do so well) is benefit from invisible structures of privilege.

people who benefit from structural, systemic racism and do nothing to change the racist systems are racist, no matter how "nice" they are.

alas
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
20:33 / 08.03.02
Wow, Haus, there was only one thing you got correct in paraphrasing about the significant other.

Let's try 0 for 4, shall we?
 
 
Jackie Susann
20:51 / 08.03.02
I agree with Alas, and I think this thread has gotten derailed pretty quickly.

We go from a question about class and prejudice, and the ways the middle classes displace 'racism' (for example) on to other (poorer) people and fail to see it amongst themselves, to arguing about whether or not to call Grandad an arsehole and that there's some sort of prejudice in everything.

Aargh! Pulling hair out, promising something more constructive later...
 
 
The Monkey
09:52 / 09.03.02
Um, speaking of "class and predjudice," howza about we explore the term "white trash"? Used without hestitation, I note. White trash means blue-collar low-pay, typically rural, and non-Yankee (not from the NE or norther Midwest). "White trash" are characterized as indolent, lazy, promiscuous and sexually/reproductively irresponsible, ignorant and incapable of bettering themselves. Sound like anything we've heard before? Holy jigabooing, Batman!
It's class predjudice at it's creamiest and most socially acceptable.

If you wanna talk about displacing the passive racist failings of the middle class in the United States, look at how the rural, and particularly the Southern rural, becomes a scapegoat, a stereotype of the "bad white person," that your average college-graduate, suburbanite/urbanite holds up as a contraposition to their own. The other white people are the real racists....

Not that they're aren't fuckheads and racists in these regions...but their demographic occurence has little to do with the preexisting stereotype of the Southern racist. In other words, there are a lot of Americans who think they get a dispensation for having had an ancestor on the right (winning) side of the Mason-Dixon...a position which relies heavily on the intentional rewriting of the Civil War/War Between The States as a conflict over slavery rather than industrial economic issues regarding the economic inequalities of production [South] versus processing and sale [North] of cotton and indigo.

P.S. For every, ahem, "white trash" wigga, there are about four suburban ones...it is, after all, a category determined by a particular kind of conspicuous economic consumption within a particular set of items representing/indexical to the media-scrubbed image of the "gangster" musician...in other words, not precisely a game for the poor.

[ 09-03-2002: Message edited by: [monkey - greatest sage of all] ]
 
 
Jackie Susann
09:52 / 09.03.02
Yeah, it drives me crazy that right-on activists who would go nuts if they heard people use race or gender based slurs can happily joke about bogans (an Aust. term meaning, roughly, the same thing as white trash does in US). It is such obvious class prejudice it's unbelievable nobody says anything.

Also annoying, the term 'wifebeater' for singlets on working class guys. Yeah, because violence towards women is a) funny and b) exclusively perpetrated by poor people.

This was not the more productive post I promised, it's coming. This is venting.
 
 
The Monkey
09:52 / 09.03.02
Observation on something that really, really kills me:

How about the passive "discrimination" of the Western intellectual/radical by not treating post-colonial peoples as thinking subjects of their history, but rather as objects acted upon and shaped entirely by the forces of Europe? Or alternately, freely moulding their activities as subalterns and free agents to a pre-existing radical dialogue, thus similarly denying the historical subjects agency?
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
09:52 / 09.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Kali:
Wow, Haus, there was only one thing you got correct in paraphrasing about the significant other.


Now, one reason for not assigining names to the characters in our dumbshow above was to avoid any personal issues entering the discussion.

Another was the very vague hope that Kali might not rot another thread by talking absessively about her. Boy. Friend.

However, if we must.

Kali's. Boy. Friend. Expressed the belief that there were dudes and fags (using, hilariously, those exact words) and never the twain would meet.

Two years down the line, I have no doubt that Spike, under her positive influence, is a counsellor at the local Queer Sisterhood meeting. For the purposes of our argument, it hardly matters. The point is that a homophobic *act* (in this case, speech-act, but that again is not particularly relevant) was considered apparently separable from the idea of a homophobic person. Because the homophobic speech-act came from a person who it was important to consider a white-hat.

One might perhaps just as well consider dubious attitudes to women ignored in a man held up to be a leader of Marxist theory, or any number of other little compromises.

Now, Kali, if you feel the need to set the record straight, and I am more than happy to change the case-study above accordingly, feel free to do so, since its utter lack of relevance to the thread and its enormous relevance to your. Boy. Friend. make that an entirely natural and just act. Then kindly contribute something meaningful and relevant outside the purlew of your. Boy. Friend. to the discussion, or let other people do so instead.
 
 
Shortfatdyke
09:57 / 10.03.02
ok, i will try and make sense here. i am working class. i have class issues - anger at the opportunities denied me because of my class, which i see my middle class friends have. i see how much easier in some ways their lives are. and it pisses me off. natural, i suppose.

BUT i also have issues with my own class. a lot of anger, a lot of frustration - the idolisation of stupidity, people checking themselves to make sure they don't appear clever, the sneering and hatred towards those that want to break free of these barriers. i know how little was expected of me/for me - at school, at home. people of all classes can be stupid. but the working class suffer most if they are.

actually, this post seems to have nothing to do with the thread title, so sorry if i'm threadrotting here. but class issues are a big thing for me and i felt the need to add my tuppence.

[edited to add] i do have experience of a middle class, lefty colleague at work, who years ago used to pick on me. her attitude has changed completely since i came out and became visibly lesbian. i detest her dishonesty and token gestures - she didn't like me before, i would respect her more if her attitude had stayed the same.

[ 10-03-2002: Message edited by: shortfatdyke ]
 
 
Hieronymus
09:57 / 10.03.02
But what about terms of prejudice used in an insulated fashion? Middle class whites and hell even blue collar whites referring to The-South-Shall-Rise-Again blue collar whites as white trash or redneck? Blacks referring to one another as 'niggah'? My good friend James, who is gay, happens to typify flamboyantly obnoxious homosexuals as 'icky fags'? If the class and prejudice divisions and the terms born from those divisions are doing nothing but dividing us, why are they strong and vibrant even within the cultures/races in which they are sometimes used against by outsiders?

[edited to correct lousy spelling of 'insulated'. Thank you dictionary.com!]

[ 10-03-2002: Message edited by: Dekapot Mass ]
 
 
Mourne Kransky
17:37 / 10.03.02
Interesting article in The Observer today which might be relevant. Yes, we're all good guys without a racist bone in our bodies and we mind our language...

This research in Edinburgh and in New York, involving scans of the amygdala, seems to show that some of us are just good at covering up racist feelings or that the anti-racist super-ego can still be wrapped around a can of worms.

Apparently non-racist people, racist attitudes not coming through on psychological testing, still showed fear and anxiety when shown pictures of black people which wasn't happening with the pictures of white people.

Here's the article.
 
 
The Monkey
20:06 / 10.03.02
to play devil's advocate.

The one problem with this this study that you're describing is that it presumes that the subject is not engaging in second-order analysis of the purpose of the experiment or self-conscious analysis of one's own racism, both of which could generated agitated firing of the amygdala - a pretty blunt instrument for measuring a precise thought.

It's like the evolutionary psychologists who think that love can be measured in terms of the regulatory circulation of oxytocin, serotonin, and norepinephrine...the three neurotransmitters being function mechanisms for the "symptomology" of love -- a position that neglects that the same NTs are also all used in the act of the human orgasm. Just because the amygdala is firing doesn't mean they know precisely what's making it firing.

Next, consider that when they say "subjects" they mean college student volunteers. And barring a few phenomenal exceptions, college students are generally far more aware of social issues such as racism than others...to the degree of a self-uncertainty.

So if you're a white college student having your brain scanned, while they show you pictures and white and black people, aren't you going to scent something funny going on?
Isn't that going to generate agitation that will cause the amygdala to fire?
 
 
Naked Flame
09:52 / 11.03.02
I think part of unconscious prejudice may be simple pattern-recongnition. In my case, I got the shit kicked out of me in my pre-teens by white kids in naff 'designer' clothing, (remember nascent tracksuit fashion in the 80s? Yeuuuch.) So, my own particular knee-jerk trigger is shellsuits. I'm very aware of a fight-or-flight response kicking in around mainstream white male tribes like footy fans or drunken stockbrokers.

I can walk down Coldharbour Lane in Brixton and feel much more comfortable. However, I'm very aware in this of being a potential fight-or-flight trigger for others. You can see it sometimes in eye contact, body language etc. I'm wondering if the neutral pattern-recongnition sort of thing I'm describing can be reinforced and entrenched in an active sense by enough of those random incidences of bad eye contact: it's then got the resources to become a fully self-sustaining meme.

Thread tangent: how'dya kill a meme?
 
 
Shortfatdyke
09:52 / 11.03.02
[deleted: irrlevant to the thread]

[ 11-03-2002: Message edited by: shortfatdyke ]
 
 
Cat Chant
09:52 / 11.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Dread Pirate Crunchy:
We go from a question about class and prejudice, and the ways the middle classes displace 'racism' (for example) on to other (poorer) people and fail to see it amongst themselves, to arguing about whether or not to call Grandad an arsehole and that there's some sort of prejudice in everything.

Like Crunchy, I too promise to say something constructive later, but in the meantime I just wanted to say I don't think the Grandad/arsehole dilemma is a total derailment: it certainly interacts with questions of othering prejudice by posing the question 'well, if we're so evolved, how do we interact with those who are less enlightened?' Which I'm actually going to start a thread on in a couple of days, I hope, when I've worked out what I'm trying to say.

One quite interesting way in to this thread might be through the mythical fags 'n' dudes detector-person. The anecdote reminded me of a friend of mine who runs anti-homophobia workshops. She starts out showing a bunch of photos to the group and saying 'which one's gay?' - but she has two different levels of response. To kids, she tends to say 'any of them could be gay!' (which is of course true: there are people who look gay & are straight & vv), to adults she tends to say 'Well, yes, but the ones that look really gay are more likely to be gay'. So the fag/dude detector is in fact saying not "I can spot a fag from 100 paces" but "I can recognize certain types of gay coding in the appearance, dress and demeanour of certain gay people who have chosen to make these things visible".

Maybe one could move away from 'prejudice' and 'racism' to thinking about what sorts of cross-cultural (reading) competences people have, and how they use them. Obviously the whole commodification of 'native' American culture(s) involved in the college girl's dream-catcher is a vile thing. But equally obviously, assuming that as a white/middle-class/straight person one has no stake in other cultures & codes is a vile thing. For example - and I hope I'm not reopening a wound here, bk - but when that fight erupted around the 'marriage' thread and you kept asking the queer posters to tell you what you *should* have said, I kept wanting to point out that they do *sell* books on queer theory to straight people; race is not just a quality of non-white people, gender not just a quality of women, and sexuality not just of queers. We're all implicated.

Hmmm. Okay, so obviously identities are constituted not in a vacuum but in constant negotiation with the 'other'. Perhaps the point is the type of negotiation - whether one owns up to that, or whether one just stealthily appropriates and/or melodramatically rejects the 'other's' codes/cultures/artefacts, in an attempt to *shore up* one's own identity and the boundaries between self & other (white & black, gay & straight, etc)?

Rambling. Sorry. Getting back to transcription now.
 
 
The Planet of Sound
10:48 / 11.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Flame On:

Thread tangent: how'dya kill a meme?

Ask the ancient Babylonians, Sumerians, or Manx speakers. Tempus mutatis.
 
 
Jackie Susann
11:07 / 11.03.02
quote: I don't think the Grandad/arsehole dilemma is a total derailment: it certainly interacts with questions of othering prejudice by posing the question 'well, if we're so evolved, how do we interact with those who are less enlightened?'

well sure but... doesn't this beg so many questions it's about to get moved on for vagrancy? i feel i am missing a good number of points.

Haus said somethin about detaching homophobic acts from homophobic people, n i'm taking him out of context but i'm all for that. it's just crazy to think of the homophobe, the racist, whatever, as a kind of person, like a cartoon supervillain; once you think like that, of course they're an 'other'. that's why the people who say the most fucked up things will always preface with 'i'm not a racist but, i don't have anything against gay people but'.

maybe once you start thinking 'it isn't that there's a kind of person who is a racist, it's that there are acts which have racist effects, including acts of ommission (things you don't do...)' that it's harder to hold the them-racist me-cool mcgool line. like even think 'maybe there are diff kinds of racist acts more commonly associated with diff social positions and some are easier to spot coz they come form stigmatised social possies' etc.

so maybe the question should be more like 'how can i open myself to those criticisms that will show me that things i take for granted are actually fucked-up, esp. when those crits most likely come from social possies i'm not part of and probably/maybe dismiss most times?' like the question of interacting isn't how to do it w/ the less enlightened but how to split enlightnment with others who have kinds you wouldn't know how to recognise...

this has been my 1 am, should really go ta bed, attempt at a constructive somesuch...
 
 
The Natural Way
11:28 / 11.03.02
I think I'm likely to avoid large groups of blokes, whether black or not. Definitely avoided the odd mugging or two. Am I mannist?

I don't know...there's so many questions there, I wouldn't know where to begin...
 
 
Morlock - groupie for hire
12:12 / 11.03.02
quote: so maybe the question should be more like 'how can i open myself to those criticisms that will show me that things i take for granted are actually fucked-up, esp. when those crits most likely come from social possies i'm not part of and probably/maybe dismiss most times?'

Posting here is a pretty good start. Seriously, given that hypothetically anyone can be offended/feel excluded by anything, the only solution I can think of is to interact directly(ish) with as many people as possible. Ideally every man, woman and pet on this mudball (and anyone else who feels excluded from these categories), except that seems rather impractical at this time. It's bloody hard to fail to be prejudiced in favour of your friends, and so against everyone else, so one solution would be to pile everybody into the 'friends' category.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:01 / 11.03.02
Think that's doomed to failure due to being utterly unrealistic. Everyone is not your friend, there will always be people you do and don't like.

Crunchy's asking an important question here: (for me anyway) it moves the conversation on from an description of 'racist (for example) incidents we have seen' and a dissection of those incidents (which can often result in have/attendant on it, the 'handwringing' response) into a territory of (self-)
examination for the purpose of taking action, which seems a much more useful way to go.

Dunno how relevant this is but I'm reminded of arguments and exercises that keep coming up in my counselling class.

To set up a useful professional relationship, we work with the notion of separating giving a person positive regard is separate from validating their actions.

This is a lot harder than you might think, and one exercise which might be useful in this context was given to us to examine the conditionality of our liking....

We were given a list of things that a client might say to us and asked which ones would interrupt/switch off any attempts on our part to listen, to validate the right of the person to talk, to deserve a listener without validating their opinions, and presenting to the person congruently...

egs
"I know that most people would think what my daughter and do is wrong, but we love each other"
"As a policeman, it's my duty stop the rioters, any way how"

as well as the obvious sexual/racial egs... It's a difficult way to operate, and it was surprising how many woolly-liberal counselling students were frothing at the mouth insatntly, and how different our particular 'hot buttons' were.

Hmm... rambling but think I'm trying to make a point about trying to think of ways of interrupting the othering process, and how deeply-rooted it is...

[ 11-03-2002: Message edited by: Lick my plums, bitch. ]

[ 11-03-2002: Message edited by: Lick my plums, bitch. ]
 
 
Mr Ed
16:01 / 11.03.02
So, because I'm hard of thinking, is this a debate on the defintion of racism? On wether the labels of race actually matter? Or if they are an unavoidable part of being in modern society, regardless of how well informed you are?

quote:Originally posted by todd:
(actually, the prejudiced older relative path is a fruitful one to explore, like IIRC Ganesh's elderly aunt.)
[ 08-03-2002: Message edited by: todd ]
My dad, whom I love, hates entire nations. He spent most of his young live as an engineer, and has seen a lot of the world.

Some countries he place into the 'corrupt' box, and he dislikes those places, and therefore the general people there.

He isn't unkind to or about a person on the basis of country origin or race, and describe himself as racist and changes the topic, because he doesn't want to go through the whole conversation about socio-politics in 'place x' again.

Changing my train of thought:
quote:bitchiekittiesaid
some people just arent ready, or they are thick as pig shit, either way. or the timing is wrong.


Is putting people who don't think the same way you do in the 'thick' box discrimination?
 
 
bitchiekittie
16:15 / 11.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Mr Ed:
Is putting people who don't think the same way you do in the 'thick' box discrimination?

no.

but no matter how well thought out your arguments/beliefs/opinions, the fact remains that there will always be people who will never listen/understand/care what you have to say or how you say it. beating your head against a wall attempting to change that is a wasted effort that will earn you nothing but a headache.

Im not saying you shouldnt try, or that someones resistance means that they are wrong or that they are right. only that theres a difference between real determination to change things and a futile resolve to "win"
 
  

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