- I didn’t recognize his name at first. It was his writing that caught my attention. An autobiography in 100 words. That was the first assignment, and it was as much for me to get to know my students as to evaluate their writing skills. When I scrolled through the submissions, I saw that many of them were “fun-loving,” “ambitious” and “determined to succeed,” but only one was “living on a radical fringe” that put him at risk of being a “societal leper.” Only one spoke of being duty-bound to a “right wing resistance,” and asserted that if he didn’t stand up for “European folk” and advocate for his race, the “liberal sheep” would continue to erase his heritage.
In an act of piousness, I did to him only what I would have had him do to me: I Googled his name.
You know, a lot of people look at racism through the prism of "x person or group is a racist, that's inhuman!" followed by, "racists aren't human." That's always struck me as the same kind of wrong as a guy calling a girl or woman a slut and then bragging about how many "bitches" he's "bagged." The thing about prisms though, is that they, like the things they view or the light they split, are multifaceted or exist in more than one state. I had a friend in college who for all intents, acted like a greaser straight out of the 1950's, one of those guys that occasionally tell me that they forget I'm not white, who include me in racist conversations with an addendum like, "obviously, you're not like that." I used to think that maybe it was because I grew up in a different environment than my parents, with very little contact to others of my parent culture, or that I was one of those "twinkies" people talked about. Now, I think that it's because I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, at least in person to person interactions. Either way, I think racism is very much a symptom of isolation as well as fear. Sometimes those fears are justified by some prior experience. In response to the author's question, "What should he have to go through?" I think the best place to start is "an education," by which I mean face to face experience with the thing most feared. Sometimes throwing a person to the wolves is exactly what a human needs, if only to generate new perspectives. This goes for everyone, including ardent, well-meaning anti-racists too.
I'm always disappointed in comments on articles across the board, but Salon is usually the worst. The argument that "there is no such thing as tolerance of the intolerant" always distresses me. It seems obvious to me that responding to prejudice and hate with more hatred and insults is never going to work.
I have to say I think I'm pretty intolerant of intolerance. If I can see a glimmer of an open mind that's enough for me to be pragmatic and explanatory in most cases, but to a point. When the bigotry of others is actively harming people in pragmatic real life situations I'm not above letting them know what I think of them in less than flattering terms. As with anything, you have to know your audience and tailor the most effective message to attain your goals based on that, and i do think that a carrot and not a stick works best in most cases, but I've seen plenty of situations where I'd lose no sleep calling a bigot a bigot. Some donkeys just aren't hungry.
Does calling a bigot a bigot do anything to change their mind? I admire your stance but I wonder what you hope to gain by it? For me its a bit like calling a crazy person crazy, they either wont agree with you and say "I'm not Crazy, some of my best friends are sane..." but by going head on against them you will never convince them otherwise. The people who actually are crazy and know it are unlikely to be bothered by you calling them nuts.
I don't think it changes their mind, but it does let them know that I see their beliefs for what they are. A lot of the most bigoted beliefs are protected from self-scrutiny beneath a mantle of divine sanction informed by the person's religion. They actually think their belief is good and moral. I do think it's worthwhile to staight up call that out for what it is, -pure and simple run of the mill bigotry. When you're holding bigotry up on a pedestal as a belief system to aspire to and admire, you need to know that the rest of the world not only doesn't agree, but sees it as actually immoral and damaging. Polite deference isn't always enough. But again, I basically never call someone with bigoted beliefs a bigot to their face as it isn't generally productive on a face-to-face basis. An exception was my dad, who, when faced with my opposition to his thinking homosexuality was wrong and gays be allowed to marry, asked me if he was then a bigot and demanded I answer him. I had to inform him that sadly, yes, he was, but I still loved him and he had a lot of other great qualities :) He found out later that year that his daughter was gay, and now he magically changed his stance :P Funny how that works. It's also important to keep in mind that calling someone a bigot if they actually hold bigoted beliefs isn't a slur or an insult. It's just a truth they hate hearing and it's considered a truth that is impolite to speak out loud.
Yeah, I get that. That makes sense. I was more referring to the sort of people who don't see the point in attempting to reason and discuss these things, instead claiming that those sorts of people are "scum" and not worth educating and/or talking to. The sort of people who show an equal amount of hate and disgust toward the bigoted sorts of people.
I live in Ireland and I travelled to Tennessee a few years ago and while I was there I bought one of those metal wall panel things with a confederate flag on it. Its hanging on my wall right now. I had no idea why my co-workers looked a little awkward as I paid for it. I only figured it out once I got home.
Out of curiosity, why did you buy that? Just some interesting souvenir of the "south"?
When I was eight years old, my third grade art class had us make something out of felt and paper. I made a race car that looked a lot like the General Lee from Dukes of Hazard. Except I changed the logo on the door. I had been watching a lot of Indian Jones movies and I replaced the rebel flag with the Nazi Swastika. My parents were notified and I'm sure it looked bad considering my father is german. But it was Indian Jones' fault, I swear.
That is fantastic. I'd like to see the reaction as you made that. "Oh look he's making a car. Wait is that the car from Dukes of Hazard? Ugh I hope he doesn't put a Confederate Flag on it, I don't want to have that conversation...Oh it looks like he's putting something else...fuck is that a swastika?!? WTF?!?!? What sort of racist is he?"
Hahaha. I never thought it through that thoroughly. That's hilarious.