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[Pinko Marx]

Man it's so disheartening seeing this article bring up very valid points about people who may or may not be racist and a portion of GAF going "FUCK YOUR FEELINGS, RACIST". It's amazing how quickly people are to discredit someone because they're white and aren't as "woke" when it comes to social/racial issues.

 

[Air]

It shouldn't be surprising that exposure leads to loss of racism, hate, etc. Hell, stuff like this is even in the Bible!

The issue is that the people who need it most don't live in the same vicinity as the people they hate.

 

[Puck Beaverton]

Look I'm not saying don't call racist shit out. I'm saying don't be an asshole about it.

There's a world of difference between "Hey man, that's not cool" and "You're a racist piece of shit!". The first may work. The second never will.

pretty much

being in the right has never meant you will win in the end

 

[Lothar]

What the fuck does this even mean?

It's explained in a post right below it. It's crazy that this needs explanation or something so common sense needs research.

The question here is do you want to sneer at people or try and make the world a better place.

The two are pretty much mutually exclusive.

 

[BlackJace]

Again, I don't think the opposition of the article are actually for going around screaming at people and only supplanting their arguments with words like "racist/racism/bigot/bigotry".

But it seems as if the word racist or racism even shows up in a line of argumentation, it is seen as attacking the very soul of the person.

The thing is that it is not a brutal assault on someone. If I said that I believe women are inherently inferior to men, what I just said was misogynistic. I should be informed that what I just said was misogynistic. If I just said something that hurts or demeans someone, why is it the victim's responsibility to tiptoe around my feelings?

 

[freeofgreed]

You can call racist behavior racist without saying that the person maliciously hates black people. You can explain why things hurt black people or other minorities without getting into a shouting match. Most of these people don't actually hate black people (though some do), they're just selfish and ignorant and more concerned with their own problems than those of others. You should be careful about how you "call it what it is" because it's often counter productive. That's the whole point of this research

Have you ever actually tried? If someones being racist I'll call it racism. Fuck trying to spare their feelings. Like I said before I'm not naive enough like many Gaffers in this thread to think that Racists views can be changed. Some can, but those are outliers. You can do that all you want and I wish you the best of luck.

 

[KonradLaw]

I don't buy the idea that you have to be racist to vote for somebody racist. Even if you actually consider him racist there might be countless other things that are more important to you than racism.
If somebody in rural area dominated by whites believes Trump will make the life of him and people close to him better..why wouldn't he vote for him? Because minorities in far away city might get screwed over it? Why would he value those stangers over people he actualy knows?

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

so are you going to have this talk with your family or not?

OP clearly dedicated to stomping out racism with hard work and empathy tho

 

[Lil'DigiOp]

See, I don't get this.

Okay, so you call people racists and bigots. What have you achieved?

As for some of the posts above- I do talk to people about these issues. A lot.

Because honestly, I used to think like them. After reading the arguments here and looking at the facts years ago, I changed my view. I was born and raised in an almost exclusively white upper middle class suburban town with 1 black kid in my graduating class. I used to bitch about the fact that it would be harder for me to get into college because of affirmative action, etc. Then, I went to a local university- Where I learned more. I saw blatant racism and sexism in the workplace after I graduated. You have to consider that most Trump voters exist in similar bubbles. It takes time, but you *can* change these views, but this is not the way to do it. In my opinion, anyway.

I can understand you don't like the idea on an emotional level but do you have a better suggestion?

You guys suffer from the same exact issue that these people have from Day 1.


Why the FUCK do I have to prove I deserve treatment and respect like every other human being in the world due to something I had 100% NO CONTROL over?

Nobody can fucking answer the fucking question. Everyone talks those bullshit circles around it.

 

[Christian]

I don't call people racist, but I have on numerous occasions tried to have conversations with people about racism, including people in my own family, and I feel like I never make any headway. Ultimately, even when I get some acknowledgement, they go talk to other people that share their beliefs and it just reinforces the bullshit. I can't be everywhere.

 

[entremet]

This is super obvious and very timely.

"You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar”

 

[Brian_FETO]

The thing that's funny is people taking this as "oh, so I should care about the racists' feelings?"

.....yes. That's how you end racism. The people who aren't being racist aren't the problem. There's a difference between hurting their feelings (who cares) and trying to provide perspective to perhaps make a difference in their outlook.

It'd be nice to think "eventually the racists will just move on or die" but that's not the reality.

It shouldn't be the responsibility of humans to teach other humans that those they think are lesser are also human, but a dismissal of the approach and saying "nah fuck that and fuck them" doesn't change much either. (even if it is totally warranted)

If your preferred approach is to say "fuck you" louder then feel free to go for it, but it doesn't seem like it worked to sway the people who voted for Trump

 

[HiredN00bs]

I'm sorry, I just can't buy the fact that those who've spent their lives labeling people in a way that demeans and disenfranchises them should be exempt from being labelled themselves because of fucking feelings.

I see people make this fallacious argument all the time. It's not about their feelings, it's about effectively getting them to change their minds and their votes.

Why the FUCK do I have to prove I deserve treatment and respect like every other human being in the world due to something I had 100% NO CONTROL over?

Nobody can fucking answer the fucking question. Everyone talks those bullshit circles around it.

You shouldn't have to. No one should. That's why we must employ methods that have evidence of being the most effective.

 

[Plinko]

Sure would be nice if these white liberals would talk to their racist family members and friends.

100

If you're nodding your head and wagging your finger along with this read but can't be bothered to educate the racists in your family and friends, feel free to exit stage left

Every single chance I get with my in-laws.

 

[Croatoan]

so are you going to have this talk with your family or not?

I Already have? They know my beliefs and likely wouldn't have voted for trump if a supreme court seat wasn't up for grabs.

Not one of them is racist, btw. Not even a single drop of it.

 

[freeofgreed]

I don't call people racist, but I have on numerous occasions tried to have conversations with people about racism, including people in my own family, and I feel like I never make any headway. Ultimately, even when I get some acknowledgement, they go talk to other people that share their beliefs and it just reinforces the bullshit. I can't be everywhere.

You just don't have enough empathy!

 

[Coffee Dog]

Have you ever actually tried? If someones being racist I'll call it racism. Fuck trying to spare their feelings. Like I said before I'm not naive enough like many Gaffers in this thread to think that Racists views can be changed. Some can, but those are outliers. You can do that all you want and I wish you the best of luck.

Would you say that you're being irrationally dismissive and therefore harmful by not attempting to do something that works?

 

[therealist]

Why shouldn't we call it what it is?

You're asking why you shouldn't do something that does not reduce racism and might even reinforce white supremacy as the article points out?

 

[Sirpopopop]

The article was about research reaching out to people about transgender individuals. I'm not sure you can apply the same research to racism.

Key difference being that people already have active engagement with minorities.

 

[pj]

White people being the majority isn't an issue, it's the racist white people that are the issue and they are not the majority. All evidence points to Hilary absolutely destroying Trump with the popular vote.

She won by 0.7%, that is not "destroying" by any definition. 60 million people voted for Trump.

I wouldn't say the majority of whites are racist, but I think it's possible that the majority are racially indifferent.

I'm not naive enough to think I can convert a racist into a BLM supporter. When I call racist shit out, it's not with the intent to convert that person. It's to make a statement that what that person is doing is wrong, and to let others who aren't racist or who are still developing their world view know that it's wrong.

I really don't think that works. You'd have to catch someone before they're like 10 years old for that to have any kind of impact on the development of their world view. By then, they are going to be siding with the person whose views and experience more align with their own, and that will probably be the person you are calling out.

I think it is necessary to "fix" racist adults, not just wait until they get old and die out.

 

[Ray Wonder]

"RACIST"

That doesn't sound like a fun thing to be.

Especially when a person who is in the KKK that has killed a black person just for being black and a person who didn't like a movie because it had too many black people in it are classified under the same word (and you can be labeled racist for less than this "See http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1296853 ").

It's not about coddling racists, it's about not character assassinating normal everyday people. They may very well have racist ideas or ideals built into them subconsiously. Calling them racist does nothing but insult them though.

 

[Keri]

Let me just give a quick story from my personal life, that I think is relevant: I have a close family member who voted for Trump. He wrote off a lot of the attacks against Trump as being blown out of proportion and he didn't trust Hillary Clinton's character. He also believed that the "locker room" talk wasn't a big deal and Roe v. Wade getting reversed, won't be the end of the world. But, when he saw my reaction to the election, which was genuine tears, an expression of complete disappointment and fear and when he heard me discuss how much I'd been hoping to see a woman president in my lifetime, he felt a great deal of empathy for me. Later, he indicated that if he could go back and vote for Clinton, just for me, he would.

Empathy makes a difference and it changes behavior. Criticism doesn't. Maybe it didn't work for this election, but I think my family member might think more carefully about how his decisions may effect others like me, in the future.

 

[Lime]

Intersectionality, or more to the point its definition of racism, is a dangerous ideology that is destroying the Democrat Party and pushing needed votes away. It needs to go.

Intersectionality is racism? What's your definition of intersectionality?

Intersectionality covers the many ways in which we exist as multi-modal identities across class, race, sexuality, age, bodies, religion, language, and so on. It's not necessarily normative, it's just a description of how we exist and if we ignore the intersecting ways we exist we lose out the specific modalities in the unique experiences of individuals.

 

[Aaronrules380]

The article was about research reaching out to people about transgender individuals. I'm not sure you can apply the same research to racism.

Key difference being that people already have active engagement with minorities.

Many of these people don't though. Racist views are most often held by people who live in areas where minority populations are negligible

 

[Peltz]

I do think that liberals forgot how to debate effectively, especially on social media. We've been committing a classic logical error on racial issues for years now:

Argumentum ad hominem is a logical fallacy in which an argument is rebutted by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.

That's not to say that we should not call the KKK and the Alt-Right movements racist. Self-proclaimed members of those groups, however, only represent a very small percentage of Republican voters. And Republican policies and our country's establishment of institutionalized racism needs to be counter-argued with logical statements and empirical data rather than dismissed as outdated by using labels. We can call racists what they are: racists. But many people are actually ignorant of their racial insensitivity and perhaps that label is not the most appropriate way to address those ignorant folk. I think the way to truly combat ignorance is with education and not name-calling.

There's a fine line, however, between normalizing racism and engaging in ad hominem attacks. Democrats and probably I, myself, need to learn how to walk that line with a bit more grace.

 

[NandoGip]

White Fragility

 

[Maintenance]

And? Obama won without Romney supporters. Again you guys are trying way to hard to blame Trump's win on Liberals calling out racism, when the real issue was with Clinton and the structural problems in her campaign.

You're right, Obama won.

Did Hillary win without the Rust Belt.

 

[Lil'DigiOp]

You're asking why you shouldn't do something that does not reduce racism and might even reinforce white supremacy as the article points out?

WHITE FRAGILITY IS WORSE THAN RACISIM.


THE SLAVES SHOULD BE UPSET HOW THEY MADE THESE 21ST CENTURY WHITE FOLK UNEASY.

 

[KonradLaw]

I'm sorry, I just can't buy the fact that those who've spent their lives labeling people in a way that demeans and disenfranchises them should be exempt from being labelled themselves because of fucking feelings.

There's nothing wrong with valueing justice over victory. Just don't be surprised when 2020 will end up a repeat of this year.

 

[Alucrid]

I Already have? They know my beliefs and likely wouldn't have voted for trump if a supreme court seat wasn't up for grabs.

Not one of them is racist, btw. Not even a single drop of it.

so they wouldn't have voted for trump if one of the key positions to protecting minority rights wasn't up for grabs?

 

[freeofgreed]

I Already have? They know my beliefs and likely wouldn't have voted for trump if a supreme court seat wasn't up for grabs.

Not one of them is racist, btw. Not even a single drop of it.

Coming from a guy who just said intersectionality was dangerous I don't think i trust you concept of racism.

 

[double jump]

This sounds borderline Stockholm.

 

[n00bsauce87]

Whose job should it be then?

Google? People can ask it anything.

I don't get paid to teach a history class.

 

[Maxim726X]

You guys suffer from the same exact issue that these people have from Day 1.


Why the FUCK do I have to prove I deserve treatment and respect like every other human being in the world due to something I had 100% NO CONTROL over?

Nobody can fucking answer the fucking question. Everyone talks those bullshit circles around it.

It's a very simple answer. You appear you don't want to hear it.

Let's boil this down to two binary choices:

1) Call people racists.
2) Educate people on the effects of systemic racism, using statistics and studies which prove it.

What do you think is a more effective tool to enact change? Or do you simply not give a shit?

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

I Already have? They know my beliefs and likely wouldn't have voted for trump if a supreme court seat wasn't up for grabs.

Not one of them is racist, btw. Not even a single drop of it.

It's kind of hard to take your assessment of how racist someone is when you have beef with intersectionality, a concept of recognizing common issues.

 

[Alligatorjandro]

Why would these people even want to change? It's worked out pretty well for them.

 

[Vermillion]

How do you change people who hate you just because you exist?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...ing-about-race-with-the-klu-klux-klan/388733/

 

[Lime]

And? Obama won without Romney supporters. Again you guys are trying way to hard to blame Trump's win on Liberals calling out racism, when the real issue was with Clinton and the structural problems in her campaign.

I'm seriously so tired of the "PC culture made people vote for a racist!" bullshit that I see floating around by so-called moderates.

 

[deli2000]

It's not about not speaking up, it's about how you speak up. You can speak up without being super aggressive or dehumanizing

lol. I'm black, everything I say comes across as aggressive and dehumanizing to people. Even on this super liberal board, minorities voicing their concerns about the rise of white nationalism in the west are dismissed as screaming and name calling. I think it's fair that people call out the "Why don't you listen to what these people have to say?" talk when the people who are historically empathized and listened to the least are blamed for allowing racism to go unchecked.

I've spent my entire life in white majority environments, even in the face of awful bigotry i've had to suck it up and be the better man, lest I alienate everyone I know. Plenty of people, on this board and elsewhere are in this position. Plenty of threads on this forum carefully explaining systematic discrimination and how it manifests itself on a individual level are dismissed and ignored. And now post-election we're being called a bunch of shrieking babies. How is that fair?

 

[entremet]

White Fragility

People rarely admit bad behavior when accused. It's a human thing. Not a white thing.

Guilt and shame just leads people to hide their misdeeds. I thought we learned this with religion, but I guess not.

The article is about efficacy in changing hearts and minds. Not about what's right or wrong. It agrees that bigotry is wrong already. That is a give in.

 

[WrenchNinja]

Racist really is the n word for white people

 

[BlackJace]

I see people make this fallacious argument all the time. It's not about their feelings, it's about effectively getting them to change their minds and their votes.

Let's say you called me a racial slur. I respond to you with, "Hey man, what you said was racist because of X and Y, and I don't very much appreciate that".

Is that fine? Or is that still attacking you?

 

[gun_haver]

I think if you are aware that attacking and ostracising somebody for saying something you disagree with only serves to buttress their perspective, and then you continue to attack and ostracise that person, you aren't showing an interest in winning over that person to your way of seeing things, only in winning a fight according to your own terms of victory and then resting on your own unexamined pride.

There are always reasons that somebody ends up with a particular opinion, and if that opinion turns out to be something that is generally thought of as mistaken by people who have properly examined it, like for example the idea that immigration is the reason the economy is in a bad state, then it's infinitely more productive to look at the reasons that opinion came about and try to ameliorate the situation from the root. This way, you can prevent these misinformed opinions from ever forming in the first place.

You'd want as many people as possible on your side focusing on the root if your interest was in taking hold of the power to make changes. You would not want to try and browbeat people into disengaging with you entirely.

 

[mantidor]

I think people who actually believe non white people are lesser human beings or not human beings at all are well beyond reaching and not really worth anyone's time. I really doubt the article, and everyone advocating for a different approach for that matter, are talking about them.

 

[Maxim726X]

Why would these people even want to change? It's worked out pretty well for them.

Because it's the wrong thing to do?

Took me some time to learn it, but I did. And I have changed. I think the way minorities are treated in this country is incredibly fucked up. I have voted for social progressives ever since. Give people the opportunity to see the same... I bet you'll be surprised by how many do.

 

[Chezzymann]

so they wouldn't have voted for trump if one of the key positions to protecting minority rights wasn't up for grabs?

Are we implying that literally anyone who votes republican is a racist now, not just trump supporters?

 

[Lime]

Look I'm not saying don't call racist shit out. I'm saying don't be an asshole about it.

There's a world of difference between "Hey man, that's not cool" and "You're a racist piece of shit!". The first may work. The second never will.

The problem is that lots of white people (or people in position of power who are blind to it) perceive the former as being the latter, because of their fragility, as the studies in the article also points out.

So when you hear "I was called a racist!!!" it can also sometimes mean that the person in question was just challenged in her/his political opinion in a somewhat less incendiary manner.

 

[FadedRevolution]

Y'all love to shit on us for not being nice enough but y'all never have shit to say about the racist assholes.

 

[freeofgreed]

Would you say that you're being irrationally dismissive and therefore harmful by not attempting to do something that works?

You're asking why you shouldn't do something that does not reduce racism and might even reinforce white supremacy as the article points out?

Because from personal experience it doesn't work. I've been doing what this article says my entire life and it doesn't work. So you guys can waste your time doing it but I'm not.

She won by 0.7%, that is not "destroying" by any definition. 60 million people voted for Trump.

I wouldn't say the majority of whites are racist, but I think it's possible that the majority are racially indifferent.



I really don't think that works. You'd have to catch someone before they're like 10 years old for that to have any kind of impact on the development of their world view. By then, they are going to be siding with the person whose views and experience more align with their own, and that will probably be the person you are calling out.

I think it is necessary to "fix" racist adults, not just wait until they get old and die out.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1313217&highlight=popular+vote

You're right, Obama won.

Did Hillary win without the Rust Belt.

Which had nothing to do with people calling out racists. Hilary being extremely unpopular, not campaigning in those regions, and not talking about the economy had more of an impact, but you guys can just keep blaming it on liberals, have fun.

 

[Lil'DigiOp]

It's a very simple answer. You appear you don't want to hear it.

Let's boil this down to two binary choices:

1) Call people racists.
2) Educate people on the effects of systemic racism, using statistics and studies which prove it.

What do you think is a more effective tool to enact change? Or do you simply not give a shit?

You don't seem to understand that these people think Obama is Kenyan.

What the fuck are statistics really gonna do when the worst of them would spit on me in the presence.

No man, I don't think you're really understanding.
For you this is a discussion, but many others this shit is our lives. Ive seen people lose opportunities over shit like this, Ive read stories of people who lose their lives.

I won't apologize to you or anyone else to give anyone who portrays this behavior a good ol pat on the back and "it'll be alright"