So I am a part of the LGBTQ community and work in a big city in middle europe. A lot of my coworkers are religios and have a foreign background. They are mostly very nationalist and homo-/transphobic. I hate them for their blind hate and bigotry, which wont change. I have realised, that I have become a bit bigotred towards people like them in the last few months, which is, even tho my biases often revealed to be true, just unfair to them. How could I stop that?
I spent 20 years traveling the world with the US Air Force, and I met many different people from many different cultures. And I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have conflicting world views with some of the folks I’ve met over the years.
There were times, early in my career, when I felt other cultures were just wrong and needed to change everything about themselves and the way they operate in order to get themselves out of the poverty and violence and hatred that they lived in. It turns out, my way of thinking was wrong.
The thing that helped me the most was actually taking an “Introduction to Culture” course through the Community College of the Air Force. It introduced me to the mindset behind other cultures and why some people I ran into just seemed to be unapologetically biased and/or racist/bigoted toward “outsiders.”
Learning how other cultures think and associate with others of their own culture helped me to get a mental foothold on differing opinions. I was able to discuss logic and reason from a common ground, not just a Western mentality viewpoint. I learned how to “speak their language,” so to speak. And even though I couldn’t change everyone’s world views, I was at least able to relate and discuss topics on equal footing.
And at the end of the day, you have to realize that everyone is their own unique individual. Sure, a particular culture and/or religion may go against everything you hold dear in your life, but individuals’ opinions may not be as resolute as the overarching culture may appear. Some people are open to new ideas and creative ways of thinking. You need to be aware of your personal biases (we ALL have them) and work to help others overcome their own biases at the same time, while not being accusatory or judgemental.
You can’t just tell people to educate themselves, but you can educate yourself, then share your knowledge and experience with others and try to come to an understanding. There are entire cultures out there who can’t see themselves as individuals with unique hopes and dreams. They only function as individual “worker ants,” supporting the ideals of their overarching culture and families. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it makes it hard to convince them of the importance of individual people, especially members of a group that’s contradictory to the teachings of their own culture. They have an especially hard time separating individuals from the group’s belief structure.
Teaching tolerance to groups who thrive on intolerance is very difficult, but it starts by relating to and positively influencing individuals. It won’t happen overnight, but good impressions can leave a lasting effect. And you need to be able to swallow your pride and don’t let your biases get the better of you. Be caring and respectful and let their own biases crumble under their own scrutiny. There’s no simple or direct way to do this, but if you spend enough time around others, you might find small ways to relate to them, then work on expanding your common ground.
Humans compartmentalize because we don’t have the cognitive ability to understand everything in the universe. It simplifies our world so we can better understand it. But racism and bigotry is a nasty side effect; we assign biased opinions on entire cultures so we don’t have to re-learn about every single member of a culture. But it’s important to fight against that urge to stereotype and teach others how to avoid it too. People deserve a chance to prove themselves, and you need to be able to give them that chance, even if it takes them a few tries. Some people just need a guiding hand and some extra opportunities to figure out how to be better. Most people need it, to some degree. All you can do is try not to give in to your own biases and help gently lead others to identifying their own biases.
I found similar value in taking various anthropology courses in college. Learning about other cultures provides a perspective for thinking about your own. There is some good and some bad in all of them, but mostly there’s just “different”. You can have a meaningful dialog with a person you disagree with, but you can’t with someone you just don’t understand.
Do not associate people’s behaviors with their race. I am from the middle east myself, and I am pro-LGBT. A lot of middle Eastern immigrants are anti LGBT, but not all of us. There are also many Europeans and white people who are homophobic, so the reverse isn’t true either.
And just remember that homophobia as it exists today was exported by European colonial powers. While Muslim regions were never particularly excited or warmly welcomed LGBT, they tended to leave them be and treated them normally for the most part. It was not a societal issue worth considering. Modern homophobia was introduced by the west, and while Europe has seen great improvements there, the Middle east and third world is sadly behind on all fronts. Our wars and lack of education keep us more ignorant.
Last thing I’d add is that I notice middle Eastern immigrants to be more homophobic than the ones at home. I suppose it’s their reaction to going to LGBT friendly places and thinking it’s a conspiracy theory. I only say this to say that it is not as bad at home.
I know this is a complex topic and you have a lot of solid replies already. All I can add is, mushrooms may help you shift and broaden your perspective if you haven’t tried them already.
I know the common theme is to blame ignorance and while in many cases that’s true, but we often overlook other causes. Imo, it’s sometimes due to ressentiment, “sense of hostility directed toward an object that one identifies as the cause of one’s frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one’s frustration. The sense of weakness or inferiority complex and perhaps even jealousy in the face of the “cause” generates a rejecting/justifying value system, or morality, which attacks or denies the perceived source of one’s frustration. This value system is then used as a means of justifying one’s own weaknesses by identifying the source of envy as objectively inferior, serving as a defense mechanism that prevents the resentful individual from addressing and overcoming their insecurities and flaws. The ego creates an enemy to insulate themselves from culpability.” A lyric from one of my favorite songs, “Lunatic Fringe”, sums it up nicely. 'Cause you got to blame someone for your own confusion.
In my opinion it’s fine to hate them for their beliefs. But you need to remember that everyone that looks like them isn’t them. Each human is a complex person and it’s unfair to hate a person without knowing them.
What might help is trying to find someone of that race who is lgbt and speaking to them. That might help stop your brain from jumping to the conclusion of their all bigots.
IMHO the most important thing is to have a moral foundation so you understand yourself why you believe racism/bigotry to be a bad thing.
It’s hard to say one is being good when intentionally and needlessly harming another right? And racism and bigotry intentionally and needlessly harms those being discriminated against.
So you get to decide if you want to be a decent person or one of the ugly hateful people. And of course whichever one decides, they will reap the consequences, whether that’s a bunch of cool friends or something else.
My recommendation to you, start viewing your coworkers as the ugly people they are and make it clear you don’t hang around low-lifes without directly stating anything in reference to them.
Bravo to you for seeing people as people. Obviously none of your coworkers made a conscious choice to be intolerant, it’s just an emergent phenomenon given their experience with the people around them, an effect you’re noticing happen in yourself.
I don’t know how to achieve it, but I think there is only one way to combat intolerance, and that is to move people from an outgroup to an ingroup. People tend to not care about people in their outgroup, but tend to be intolerant of people they fear in their outgroup. People who have their family, their church, and their compatriots in their ingroups are referred to as nationalists, and when nationalists are convinced to fear their outgroup, you get fascism.
They are intolerant of the LGBTQ community because they have (unfounded) fears that there is an “agenda” to erode their religions and force people to be like them. You are intolerant of them because you have (often well founded) fears that their actions fuel systemic intolerance that has a very real impact on your livelihood.
I think the only way to flip this on its head is to break this pattern, for each of you to view each other as part of your ingroups. Now, it would be fair to say that’s too hard, that would be unreasonably difficult to become that close to them, and you’d probably be right. I think that’s why many in this thread have instead settled for seeing them as less than human, not worth “saving”. But that’s what I think would need to happen.
Excellent comment. I think it’s fair to say that a lot of friendships start with realising you have something in common with someone else. When you focus too much on what’s different between you and someone else, like only thinking of someone as being part of the lgbtqi+ community, or being a religious nut, you don’t give yourself head space to see the other things that could potentially unite you.
It’s also tempting to think that certain politically motivated groups have exploiting nationalism down to a science at this point. It sure seems that way if you look at the media. So it could be that OP has more work cut out for them than is tenable.
Still, if my options are: go to war, or treat people like humans and then go to war, I’ll choose the latter. Personally, I’d rather die at the hands of a bigot than live treating anyone as irredeemable subhuman garbage. But I understand why living is the more important priority for most people. So it goes…
Obviously none of your coworkers made a conscious choice to be intolerant
That’s a huge, and demonstrably incorrect, assumption. I have a friend that treats everyone like that, they’re super outgoing, throw huge parties, and invite every type of person you can imagine, and they all show up because they’re excellent parties. The bigoted racists gather in their own group (they easily find each other by their stupid shirts) make off color jokes, loudly, except the really bad ones, which they quietly say to each other and snicker like teenagers. I tend to blend in to the background and overhear a lot of what they say to each other. They chose to hate, they view certain humans as lesser beings, and repeatedly act in ways to explicitly prove they’re not part of any group outside their own, on purpose. They want, and deserve to be excluded until they’re willing to change.
SpoilerThey won’t, even if they say they will. Believing them will make your life miserable, and then they’ll beg you to let them do it again.
Do you believe you would behave any differently if you were working from the same information they are? If no, then we agree. If yes, then you believe you are somehow inherently superior to them. I think that is pretty dangerous.
Do you believe you would behave any differently if you were working from the same information they are?
Yes. I was raised as a Christian and was fed not that dissimilar bullsh*t from an early age. At that point access to information was way, way worse (no internet, small village…) than now, yet it wasn’t that crazy difficult to realize what crap it was. IMNSHO there’s no excuse today.
As someone of color (Indian) who is often mistaken as being foreign/religious until they hear my accent...
I feel the other commenters here are missing the mark. This isn't about fixing them, or learning to "accept them as they are": bigots should never be tolerated.
Which is to say, your reasons for being "bigoted" towards the bigots isn't a matter of prejudice: you've extrapolated a pattern.
But you don't want to apply this pattern unfairly to people you haven't met, because that'd make you bigoted as well.
Well, I have good news for you: you aren't at any risk for that. Real bigots don't think they're bigots. People with prejudices don't consider their judgement unsound. They think they're the most unbiased, reasonable people in the world, and often try to push their opinions on others with violence, whether it's verbal, social, or physical.
By simply acknowledging internally that you have thoughts that you consider unideal, and unfair, you've done a thousand times more self-reflecting, and have more capacity for self-correcting, than someone like my parents would.
Don't try to beat the bad thoughts out of yourself. Acknowledge them, and pledge to act better than they'd have you.
I would worry about that after I no longer had to worry about people who were bigoted towards me. And then all it would take is to remember no race, religion, party, medical condition, or sexual orientation is absolute in its attitude (as in there are good and bad in every group). I hope there are some people of ethnic background in your situation who denounce their more supremacist peers.
It’s completely understandable to respond that way towards people who are dismissing or attacking a fundamental part of who you are.
At the same time it’s important to note they are a small sample size of their religious/ethnic/national background. Each of those groups is probably so large as to contain every kind of person from saints to bigots, which is why hating a group that large is fundamentally irrational.
Honor your own feelings, don’t make excuses for their bigotry, but remember that they like any of us are just small parts of the groups they belong to.
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