@StillIRise1963 We need to work to convert every racist we meet especially the polite wouldn’t say it to your face kind. They’re the breeding ground for the extremists & I think overall more damaging because so many people tolerate their “polite” racism rather than feel socially awkward. We need to suck it the fuck up & confront them every fucking time. Others’ll follow your lead but you have to be willing to be the 1st to stand up & the last to sit down. I try hard to live by this. #Racism
@StillIRise1963 Oh I’ve “converted” a few of them in my day. Had many on-stage fights with those bastards. I’m proud to say that we (by “we” I mean my local punk community) actually convinced quite of few of them, without violence, that it’s a sick, backwards philosophy.
I’ll never forget the look on this 20 y/o face when I explained white privilege to him using a real world example that happened to him. It clicked for him. We hugged it out.
@StillIRise1963 Put it this way: the lad I saw sporting a Hitler haircut and the remains of a toothbrush moustache struck me as too toxic to feed even to plants.
@StillIRise1963 absolutely, I'm multiethnic but compradores abound in my ancestry. Unpicking and reknitting on the right side of history is two thirds of my life do far but it could take centuries just to understand the choices that were made.
@StillIRise1963 that's a tall order. Fascists by definition reject rationality as a decision making mechanism and replace it with emotionality. Emotions drive them. They use rational thinking to justify their emotions and to justify their vile actions.
And violence. They worship violence.
I'm not sure how to convert them.
In my mind, and maybe I'm wrong here, the best bet is getting the "both sides are the same" types to recognize they're not the same and fascism is an existential threat.
@StillIRise1963 yup. I'm trying to figure it out. You're right, no matter how many poc vote for fascsim the reality is if the majority of white people voted against fascism the GOP as we know it wouldn't exist.
This is on white people. Period.
And white people not only vote fascist too often they either actively suppress poc from voting or make excuses for that suppression, gas lighting people into thinking something other than suppression is going on.
@StillIRise1963 but what to do about my fellow white people I'm not sure. My parents and in-laws are anti Trump, thank God, but most if not all of my extended family are either MAGA or MAGA tolerating.
I haven't spoken to any of them in four years.
But, if my dad passes this week I'm planning on using that platform to try.
His is a legacy of love and sacrifice for the well being of all others, the antithesis of fascism.
@StillIRise1963@philip_cardella For me, tactically, some of this starts by talking to other white people about cops. Like... there are some pretty good statistics that show that cops are a racist institution as implemented and they don't keep "everyone" safe by a long shot. Once you start talking about cops, you can talk about institutionalized racism, and who benefits and why and now fascism and Nazism can flourish when it's not called out and dealt with.
@StillIRise1963@philip_cardella Racism is perplexing, frequently it is cultural. This is how people are raised, and it takes nature, nurture, or just intelligence to see the light. I’ll also say that all human beings are susceptible. No one gets a pass, but I will acknowledge in the USA white former Europeans have had the distinct advantage for centuries in the position to exercise their prejudices. But it was some white people who ended slavery. 🤔
honestly, I think there's a huge and under recognized difference between people reactively reeling from and then acting out fear/insecurity (and creating rationalizations from it)
and people having enough emotional sensitivity to accurately identify and use their emotions (capacities for compassion, ability to identify suffering, etc) sensibly.
There are a bunch of reasons why patriarchy sneers at people (especially men) developing emotional sensitivity.
If there were magic words that you could use, somebody would have used them by now. Challenge all assumptions that some people are lesser than others, know it may cost you a friendship but it will cost others a lot more than that.
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