My younger family friends are falling into right wing/conservative rhetoric, how can I dissuade him

[DragonSJG]

My family comes from Niger and I have many friends and family living in the states, like I did. Recently, two of my family friends(they are 16) have been posting questionable things regarding the protests. Like one of them told me this on why he doesn't support BLM movement

and another one shared this on his story:

I talked to one of them and he said "both parties aren't perfect, so its better to be in the middle and many black people are conservative, they just are pressured to vote liberal and he said he'd never be a liberal. Recently, he sent me a video shared by a conservative on how woke white people and white supremacist agree. He said he thinks its accurate because they both focus on race or some other nonsense. This is really concerning as I worry they are going down a rabbit hole which is harmful to black people and was wondering, how can I prevent this?

 

[Lord Fanny]

Sounds like they're pretty much already gone

 

[Desi]

Well, I would agree that many black people have conservative leanings. The rest of it is a handful of gotchas and ignoring the issue of a corrupt overly violent military-like police force that doesn't help the communities it should protect.

 

[Kinggroin]

Damn, they even did the white lives matter thing.


No idea how you come from that. Maybe stats will bring reason into the conversation.

 

[Vincent Alexander]

Good luck, OP. I have a friend I am trying to figure out how to save or dump. He isn't far gone at all, but he has been slowly inserting "both sides" into more of our conversations when talking about Democrats and Republicans. It's frustrating as fuck, and I hardly have the energy to go through a bullet point list of the terrible shit Republicans have done in the last 10 years.

 

[Threadkular]

I suggest not trying to dissuade them. Accept your powerless over what others think and do what's best for you (distance from them if you want and find your people?) and hope (pray?) they come around in the future.

This probably won't be a popular answer, but I think it's what's best for personal sanity. Trying to take control over what others think is a recipe for anxiety for you.

 

[entremet]

Memes? Can they read books lol.

 

[Clefargle]

I suggest not trying to dissuade them. Accept your powerless over what others think and do what's best for you (distance from them if you want and find your people?) and hope (pray?) they come around in the future.

This probably won't be a popular answer, but I think it's what's best for personal sanity. Trying to take control over what others think is a recipe for anxiety for you.

Click to shrink...

Yeah

 

[nsilvias]

let the young ones grow up and let reality punch them in the face. teens are dumb and dont know anything yet

 

[minus_me]

I'm gonna guess that reading is out of the question because they haven't reasoned their way into these ideas going by the memes.

Idk send them the alt right playbook series by innuendo studios on youtube.

 

[Darkspellmaster]

I know this is gonna sound weird but if he is young try to get him out and away from the computer. Get him to watch Frontline, it's got a lot of documentaries on the things he's talking about and covers it in detail as to why it's false narrative. Also get him history books and take him to a museum of natural history and the library. Seriously a lot of the time you can get some young off this road by showing them thoughtful and researched books on the subject.

 

[Deleted member 6539]

Have they reached the stage where they claim anything counter to their rhetoric is a lie because it's from the liberal media?

 

[DragonSJG]

One of them listens to Candace Owens
I'm going to tell their dad

 

[BDS]

Instead of trying to defend Democrats or liberalism, which is a losing game, you should engage in a dialogue with them about why they think conservatism holds the answers for Black people in the US. Probe the ideas and views that they hold and ask what they think the solutions are. You may find that they aren't actually "conservatives" (yet) but are simply "anti-Democrat," and that energy could potentially be redirected to leftist education and activism that actually helps Black people.

 

[DragonSJG]

Instead of trying to defend Democrats or liberalism, which is a losing game, you should engage in a dialogue with them about why they think conservatism holds the answers for Black people in the US. Probe the ideas and views that they hold and ask what they think the solutions are. You may find that they aren't actually "conservatives" (yet) but are simply "anti-Democrat," and that energy could potentially be redirected to leftist education and activism that actually helps Black people.

Click to shrink...

One of them listens to Candace Owens and right now, we are debating the confederate flag

 

[Cipherr]

Uhh going DOWN the rabbit hole? Man they are loooong down and in there by the point they are posting this stuff and treating "Liberal" like its a slur.

By the time they are going in on the confederate flag despite next to no one alive having much if any actual connection to it, they are far into the "support the confederacy because I KNOW its racist, but I get a little deniability" tier. Thats willful at that point. No accidental or "confused".

Not saying you cant help, but your approach would be very different between the willful and complicit and someone who is just temporarily fooled/misled.

 

[¡ B 0 0 P !]

Sounds like the YouTube algorithm got to him. Probably all began when an Anti-SJW video popped up in his feed when he was watching a Marvel or gaming video and he clicked on it. As someone who used to watch Anti-SJW videos from time to time all I can say is they can be saved. They first though must be willing to change. It also depends on how far down the path of radicalization they are.

I for one never shared racist shit though. I was more of a casual observer. This was thanks to watching leftist videos and The Daily Show too. So I was never deep down in the Anti-SJW rabbit hole. I only entered that realm because a lot of Atheist YouTube was slowly transforming into right-wingers. It was the reaction of the anti-SJW crowd to the Alt-Right and the shit show that was GamerGate that turned me off from all of them. I remember getting annoyed at Sargon at how easy he was on conservative pundits/politicians in comparison to random feminists. Like who cared what a random nobody was doing?

Not when Rob Ford was a crackhead, the Tea Party was crazy and David Cameron was pushing harsh austerity policies on the poor.

It was a video of him streaming a GOP debate with Trump that finally made me unsubscribe from his fat ass. He was laughing at Trump and saying what a joker he was. The whole thing was light-hearted fun to him. And yet when Hillary or any Lefty made a gaffe or acted silly Sargon would've been cursing a storm at how terrible they are and how modern society is doomed. The blatant hypocrisy was overwhelming.

TL:DR It's not up to you to fix your relatives. They can only fix themselves once they become aware of the dark path they have taken. All you can do is help guide them down that path, but ultimately it's up to them.

 

[Deleted member 24149]

OP I hate to say it but they're kind of entrenched in conservative media or conservative leading outlets. I really don't know what to suggest in order to deprogram them from just absorbing that knowledge but if you want to provide push back I'd recommend brushing up on some talking points and keeping tabs on what pages on facebook they start liking.

 

[Helix]

you know the conversation had derailed when "White Lives Matters" shows up. I'm sorry OP looks like they are on the deep end, but don't stop convincing them tho. always show them the full picture however you can.

 

[skeezx]

i wouldn't do shit tbh

can't fix stupid (no disrespect, going by my family experiences...)

 

[Cipherr]

Damn, they even did the white lives matter thing.


No idea how you come from that. Maybe stats will bring reason into the conversation.

Click to shrink...

Sounds like they're pretty much already gone

Click to shrink...

Right. Noone is saying "White Lives Matter" genuinely. No one. Its intentionally used to mock. Everyone who REALLY somehow thought BLM meant something nefarious has seen every meme, every video and every explanation explaining it by now. There are no more innocent "White lives matter" shouting people. Thats flat out willful and intentional racism.

 

[Powdered Egg]

You are working with several hurdles here

- Black people being conservative
- Black people being religious
- Other Black ethnicities looking down on African Americans
- People are dumb generally speaking.

I would suggest trying to break down and explain the country's history and working on your folks empathizing with Black Americans instead of looking down.

I have some dedicated sellouts in my family and tbh, I don't love them enough to steer them in the right direction. Those buckdancers aren't worth my time or energy.

 

[Wes D. Mess]

One of them listens to Candace Owens
I'm going to tell their dad

Click to shrink...

oh they gone gone.

Honestly, not much you can do, especially when things turn into some sort of debate where they feel they have to "win" the argument. The type of ideology they are prescribing to will not allow for any sort constructive discussion.

 

[EnlightenedMint]

He's not that popular here, but Destiny is great at debunking right wing talking points, would recommend some of his debates with right wingers.

 

[jay]

Activism (well, actual change) against systemic racism will obviously affect crime rates in poorer minority areas. People with good jobs rarely join gangs. It's a disingenuous argument you cannot win.

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

let the young ones grow up and let reality punch them in the face. teens are dumb and dont know anything yet

Click to shrink...

This is a cop out and handwaves away their intolerance and ignorance. Teens are old enough to not go down the right wing rabbit hole and post disingenuous bullshit.

 

[UltimateHigh]

Sounds endlessly exhausting.

 

[zero_suit]

Doesn't seem worth it to me, personally.

 

[sphagnum]

Redirect their skepticism of liberals the other way with communist memes.

 

[Deleted member 35740]

He's not that popular here, but Destiny is great at debunking right wing talking points, would recommend some of his debates with right wingers.

Click to shrink...

I would also recommend Vaush.

 

[Deleted member 2834]

16 years old are still in their formative phase (and will be for years to come) but if they're just family friends, I'd probably not waste your time on them unless they're important to you. I think the most important thing would be to find their main source of political content and go from there. Do they follow right leaning or far right content creators on Youtube, Twitter, etc.? If so, who? There are numerous stories of how fans of Sargon of Akkad, etc. deradicalized, so maybe look how that came about.

 

[Wrapped in Black]

Memes? Can they read books lol.

Click to shrink...

*hundreds upon hundreds of academic studies and professional literature about a subject*

"Meh, I don't believe this"

*memes/shitposts on the internet about subject*

"Yeah, seems legit"

 

[Snake Eater]

Sounds like they're pretty much already gone

Click to shrink...

yeah, if they believe talking points like this there isn't a return to sanity

 

[Lion]

They are lost. Maintain permanent social distancing from them.

 

[Sunster]

you can't bring someone to the light if they don't want to. he's in the right-wing vortex and seems content to stay there.

 

[geomon]

Let them jump off the cliff. You can't save everyone.

 

[AnansiThePersona]

Sounds like they live near a bunch of conservative white people and they're also rebelling against their parents/family (who are probably the only black people they regularly interact with).

Basically they're trying to fit in

 

[Tlozbj]

While throwing out talking points would suggest they may be too far gone, I would think there is still some hope left to take them out of that rabbit hole.

Before anything else, continue with what you are doing now, talk to them, and try to find the root of the issue. By what you write, they are still just teens. So this sudden shift to right, may be related to them not only falling into that side of Youtube, but also into alt-right forums. If they are currently isolated from their usual social group, that could had led to that fall into the rabbit fall. Since those in the forum became their new social group, and they reshaped their world view to fit in.

I would also reccommend to take a look at this article. A mother went through a similar situation with her 13 year old son, and she wrote down her stories and what she did to successfully bring him out of that place.

What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right

 

[Moose the Fattest Cat]

It's not an easy task to hack through the walls of ice people have frozen their brains in, but it's not impossible. Racism and bigotry, no matter how deeply ingrained, is an optional choice. It can be discarded at any time, if they want to.

To me it's a moral question. Do other people have value, or do they not? Which lives have value? Which lives are okay to persecute? Why? Shame can be effective, coupled with forgiveness — the basic strategy of all religions, and the type of moral reasoning that people tend to respond to favorably. It's carrot & stick.

Shaming won't work if it's casually applied -- and you have to be careful, because there's nothing that makes them double down more than feeling attacked, especially if they have a trained response on hand, as they do for being called "racist' or whatever. But you can shame them by forcing them to think it through with an empathic lens.

Forgiveness is coupled with education. It's not a moral failing for them to have these beliefs — we are all literally being programmed what to think, we have all been manipulated, we all have been encouraged to think in specific terms. It's okay to admit you were wrong, it's okay to admit you have been deceived. We're kidding ourselves, culturally, to not think we've been subjected to hardcore American propaganda our entire lives. And we look at people in North Korea and think, how can they really think this stuff that is so obviously false?

And yet!

 

[Dark Knight]

Always so bizarre to me how alt right conservative truth spinning is considered hip to the kids.

It probably has to do with being raised to be unempathetic so I blame the parents for being selfish and immature - probably people who had no place having kids.

 

[Maximo]

He's not that popular here, but Destiny is great at debunking right wing talking points, would recommend some of his debates with right wingers.

Click to shrink...

Yeah Destiny is shit..but he is great at persuading people that are perhaps less educated on these matters or on the younger side. Hes good at targeting *gamers/memers* that seem to lack any major critical thinking, cause when it comes to people that have been influenced like this you can't convince them through the typical empathetic ways.

 

[ProfessorLobo]

"Falling into"? They're already off the deep end.

Ask them why black families have 11x less wealth than white families. If they say something about black culture and working harder then there's no saving them.

 

[sredgrin]

Lol who does he expect them to protest when it comes to gang violence and abortion? The reason the protests are big for police brutality is because they are the fucking power that are supposed to be protecting people.

Like, there isn't a pro gang violence political lobby, there aren't people arguing in favor of gangs. It's such a moronic talking point.

 

[Handicapped Duck]

Have they reached the stage where they claim anything counter to their rhetoric is a lie because it's from the liberal media?

Click to shrink...

Unfortunately for me, yes. MPR/NPR got to someone I know, said I needed to stop listening to that "political" radio.

As for your question OP, good luck. It's not easy to undo propaganda once they fall into the pit. I fear it might be too late already.

 

[Jakten]

One of them listens to Candace Owens and right now, we are debating the confederate flag

Click to shrink...

A lot of US education purposely teaches misinformation around the civil war and the confederate flag which makes talking about this stuff super annoying but it's not necessarily a sign they are too far gone it's just a sign that the propaganda worked. I imagine most people believe some sort of propagnada that was taught to them as a kid.

But you can change their minds. I had a massive fight with a friend a while ago who is from Georgia about the confederacy and the flag once, about how it's not hate it's heritage etc. property rights blah blah. I changed his mind by asking him questions about the parts that didnt make sense, what was important to him and what he identified with. When he started having doubts, feeding him proper information (I had to do some reseach and admittedly learned some stuff myself). Showing him the language used in the original documents, showing how human beings were classed as property back then etc. Showing him that the hatred around the flag is not a hatred of him, his family or the people or places he loves but the hatred of the people and their atrocities from the past. You basically have to baby them like crazy and re-teach them history with absolute definitive proof of what you're saying. Its... difficult.

He still thinks that Georgia is not a southern state some how ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . People will tell themselves lies to make themselves feel better about the bad parts of the world they identify with and people like Candace Owens say exactly what they want to hear to make them dismiss everything and get instant relief. You have to show them there are other avenues to that relief.

At some point they will definitely become unreachable and it's not worth your time to keep trying but also the right knows how quickly the left will give up on people who let them down and it's used as one of the primary recruiting tactics. They are not secret about it. People need a place to belong and they don't disappear just because you ignore them. Even if you don't like this person any more it's worth it to try de-programming them in order to prevent the hate group from growing. The more isolated they become the more vulnerable they become mentally which means they will be easier to radicalize. As long as they feel like they are cared about and they belong to something. It's similar to how cults start.

 

[Elegant Weapon]

Hundreds of years of propaganda against black Americans is a powerful drug

White supremacy is truly bugged out shit where you don't have to be "white" at all to wield it

 

[Scuffed]

You might have a chance after Trump loses and even more so if he gets banned off Twitter. Right now though, so close to the election, you don't stand a chance. Family is also generally the hardest to educate.

 

[riverfr0zen]

Since they are family friends why not leverage your family? Make it a group activity.

 

[Ultimate Bear Cub]

In conversations with my father, he has indicated a leaning to vote Trump this election. It has worn on my peace of mind as this progressed these past four years. I love him, but I just can't stand this bullshit he keeps spewing.

We've had heated arguments to an unprecedented degree in our relationship, to the point that I pulled away slowly. I just kept pointing out the flaws in his reasoning and explained his bad sourcing of information. It didn't seem to do anything, which is why I stopped about half a year ago.

He was particularly adamant about his angry posture the year or two before, but seems to be more hesitant lately. He has been criticizing BLM offhand this past month, but I didn't bother to engage except with some seriously incorrect positions.

Then this week he blew my mind. He said that he will have to read up on what the BLM positions were to understand what the fuss was about. WHY THEY WERE PROTESTING! (Beyond the George Floyd aspect)

My brain felt like it convulsed, yet I just deadpan stared at him.

I don't know what to tell you. I don't understand how to counter this except to stand up to it, hold fast, and vote.