No one wants to address Grandgrand sending an Obama is a monkey email for the 7th time. Nip that shit in the bud and watch change happen
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New research may show the key on how to talk someone out of bigotry
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The best path I've found towards becoming happier is simply doing things that make me happy in the company of productive and positive people. Dropping negative groups and interactions and finding ways to channel my interests versus being angry, even if it is justified.
This is all despite the fact that I knowingly exist surrounded by white supremacy.
Happiness can be found in imperfect environments, and it should not have to be at the cost of trying to improve people who would rather have nothing to do with you, or secretly deep down, would be happy if you were to die.
Fuck that. I'm a progressive. I believe in living my life how I want according to my means, so that's what I'm going to do. I don't need the approval of white people. That is what I would suggest my black and brown brothers and sisters do: take pride and ownership over your passions and your culture. Discover things about yourself and your culture that light a fire. Uplift and encourage the people you care about. Live how you wish the world could be by default.
I'm 30. I've got, what, another 15-20 before my body starts breaking down or I become too old to be a nerd? I've got hair styles to explore, martial arts fights to have, conventions to attend, and art to make. Why would I waste any of that precious time on Trumpers of all people?
You want us to have positive life outcomes? Encourage us to explore and share ourselves in healthy ways without centering the conversation on straight white men.
Selfcare has never been more important. Too many things out there ready to forcefeed you negativitiy, you got to find your own peace and hold on to it for dear life. And you are never too old to be a nerd
They're seeing examples of it working on an individual level, but not realizing we've been trying this shit all our lives and if it was going to work it would be working...
The problem in my experience at least, is that it's the minorities who have each others backs, and others telling minorities they're not doing well enough while simultaneously not actually helping.
I have had so much experience talking with bigots over the last few years, and even if you approach with the most understanding possible, so many of them are so primed against being educated about their ignorance that walls immediately go up and it becomes impossible to break through.
So many bigots believe they're being attacked now, that's he narrative. Their "opinions" are being oppressed and their "free speech" is being silence. Those calling for tolerance are the "real intolerant". To them they're victims in a culture war, they're in a military grade bunker underneath a mountain.
Maybe instated of telling minorities to do better, these people should lead the charge and help create us some space we can take a fucking breath in. Maybe then we've be more equipped to give this a go... coming from the actual victims it's been framed as us trying to oppress people, hearing it from other non-minority folk they won't have that to fall back on.
I completely understand this perspective! I only centered my posts around the topic of bigotry because—well—that's what this thread is about. I didn't at all mean to imply that there's some sort of obligation to intentionally seek out these terrible human beings and attempt to engage them. I was thinking of it more in terms of if you find yourself in that type of situation, or if you are the type of person who feels compelled to take a more active role in combatting this issue, then perhaps Buddhist thought is a tool to consider.
But I completely agree you should live your life how you want and try to find happiness and inner-peace wherever you can. There are plenty of other people you can positively influence in life who aren't horrible, and that's just as valuable. Hell, even if you never influence anyone at all (which is rather impossible of course, unless you live on a deserted island), it's still extremely worthwhile to focus on shedding your own pain in order to lead a more fulfilling existence.
The question has never been about how people can be changed but how they can be changed at scale. No one has the time or patience to sit down with every bigoted person for the hours and hours needed to get results. It's simply not feasible. We have to come up with something better if we are to ever seriously address bigotry.
as a white male bodied person, i have basically spent my entire adult life converting other white people to be less terrible including my own family and the results have generally been good? i got my mom to vote for obama after thinking he was a "secret muslim" at first, and generally got a lot of other bigoted relatives on high alert whenever they interact with me lol
it's definitely possible to get people to be more open minded even when they are hardcore extremists but its a lot of time and effort that requires being extremely unemotional in the face of potentially really upsetting people and its generally understandable if someone does not want to actually commit to doing that imo especially if they are a minority of some sort - it is not anyone's responsibility to make other people less terrible but if you have the ability to do so its just kind of a why not type thing imo
it's definitely possible to get people to be more open minded even when they are hardcore extremists but its a lot of time and effort that requires being extremely unemotional in the face of potentially really upsetting people and its generally understandable if someone does not want to actually commit to doing that imo especially if they are a minority of some sort - it is not anyone's responsibility to make other people less terrible but if you have the ability to do so its just kind of a why not type thing imo
Agreed. There are definitely people out there that are too far gone for this kind of help, but there are people way more people that aren't. In high school I was more to the right in regards to the beliefs that I held compared to today, so much so that when I registered to vote I registered Republican. A lot of that was down to what I was exposed to growing up. Politics weren't really discussed in the house, in the name of keeping the peace (mom is a Dem, dad is a Rep), but my dad would take me to school in the mornings before I learned how to drive, and his morning radio of choice was a local conservative talk station. On top of that, the friends that I hung out with both in and outside of school weren't exactly the most open-minded individuals (honestly, they still aren't judging by their behavior on social media, but I don't talk to any of them anymore). What ended up shaking me was my girlfriend, who I met after I high school. Her upbringing was vastly different than mine, to the point where she was able to provide me with a lot of perspective on things that I was just flat-out ignorant of. If I said something out of that ignorance, she didn't dump me or shout me down, she would explain to me why what I thought was problematic/hurtful, which caused me to change my outlook on said subject. As a result, I am a much different person than I was 10+ years ago.
That said, I do understand that I was probably one of the easier cases, and that doing so requires a ton of emotional labor that not everyone is willing or able to provide. Over the course of our relationship my girlfriend has probably spent days explaining these kinds of topics to me, and even then I'm not exactly a combative person when my beliefs are challenged, so I was probably more receptive than someone else might be. I totally get why others may completely reject such a notion that just talking well help due to sheer amount of effort it requires to do this for just a single person, and not even with a guarantee that it will work or stick for that long. The people I'm with on a daily basis these days are much more to the left, but on occasion an off-color comment gets made. I usually try to take what I've learned and share it with others in those instances, in hopes that they too see why what was said can be hurtful.
Normal people are freaked out by fursuiters in their 20s.
Fursuiters are freaked out by fursuiters in their 50s. 👀
Like, "Go home to your family."
Exactly. We've been in a collective fight against the attitudes and entitlement that inspire Trumpism for centuries.
We've done our part with grace. It's been past time for straight white allies to step up.
Fair dues to all of that. I understand you and have no ill will towards you. I'm just ranting and spitballing myself.
I'm of the mind though that these problems are not going to be fixed in the lifetime of anyone currently reading this. While we should fight bigotry within our means, burning yourself leads to the kind of ironic pitifulness, defeatism, and cynicism I see from a lot of ERA folks that I think is just as- if not more so- useless than the sentiment of minorities here that the findings in the study are not inherently ours to take forward. And it's very easy to burn yourself confronting bigots in any fashion. Instead, I think positivity attracts positivity, and when minorities are allowed and encouraged to explore ourselves and our cultures, we can flourish in spite of the perpetual nature of oppression surrounding us.
Hell, if we're happier we might stop being so "pathetic" and be more willing to engage in conversation. 😝
Does it though?
3 months is hardly it works
Edit: Oh oops missed you pointing out the absurdity of Perhaps . We're on the same wave length I think
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This guy knows it.
It's why people getting in the face of Trump supporters on an individual level is so fucking stupid.
"if formed into reality"
Yeah approach real life shit as a thought expertment
I swear people think daryl davis is the exodia card
AHHHHHH
The dude went and bailed out a violent white supremacist he had supposedly saved years earlier from a Charlottesville prison, after said "saved" got arrested for firing a gun during the Charlottesville white supremacist riot
He called said white supremacist his friend
This guy knows shit
He's more critical of BLM than white Supremacists
I believe it was "at least three months" which just means the follow up study was three months later and they were still showing the results. Hopefully it actually lasts much longer.
Yeah, hard to say without more follow-ups over time.
Still good news to me though, I would have assumed you'd see zero actual long term changes.
Even if you are drinking non alcholtic beer you will get alcohol poisoning
Can the person explaining it be exempt. I'd die of acute alchohol poisoning
I'm deeply suspicious of these claims. There is plenty of evidence to show that one on one interventions can lead to people changing their expressed views, but little to show that it leads to real lasting change. Even the results in this study seem week. For their third experiment, they don't have a significant result at one week or one month, but get a small signal if they pool both results.
Even in the first experiment, they only show a lasting effect by using a 'pooled estimate'. I've not really dug into the numbers, bu just skimming the results it doesn't seem to be saying anything I haven't heard before.
Even in the first experiment, they only show a lasting effect by using a 'pooled estimate'. I've not really dug into the numbers, bu just skimming the results it doesn't seem to be saying anything I haven't heard before.
It probably does work. That said: Just because it does doesn't mean it's PoC and queer people that have to do that work. Uh-uh. This is literally what being an ally means. Go talk to your homophobic ass friend and help them dismantle their bullshit, straight dudes.
I'm not comfortable with the general idea pushed that "it won't get any worse if we don't do anything" because to me that's basically the same argument as "Trump and Hilary are the same thing, things won't get worse if I don't vote". We've clearly seen that not to be the case. At some point SOMEONE should probably do something. And if the left is going to be all pacifist about it, it's going to have to involve discussion with people who hold reprehensible views. But I absolutely do not think the people who are getting all of the hate should be the ones to do it all the fucking time. Or even most.
I'm not comfortable with the general idea pushed that "it won't get any worse if we don't do anything" because to me that's basically the same argument as "Trump and Hilary are the same thing, things won't get worse if I don't vote". We've clearly seen that not to be the case. At some point SOMEONE should probably do something. And if the left is going to be all pacifist about it, it's going to have to involve discussion with people who hold reprehensible views. But I absolutely do not think the people who are getting all of the hate should be the ones to do it all the fucking time. Or even most.
We are all oppressed by the rich upper class. To fight and resist them we need to convert as many workers to our side as possible even those with bigoted views. Anyone striving for progress should do their part.
The appeal to our common humanity is the strongest force there is.
The appeal to our common humanity is the strongest force there is.
I'm not wasting time trying to appeal to the humanity of people that don't consider me human.
Not a shocker, but what happens when these people go back to their regular habitats and circles. The media they're around will still keep on telling them the same things. Eventually, the programming will probably return.
I'm a lot more militant and angry about it nowadays, not extending the olive branch very far. It takes so much of a toll on me to sit there and have to argue with people about the value of human life. I'm just too emotionally vested to stomach it.
My approach has more turned into "if the dog can't behave, put it in the dog cage, or euthanize it". Not literally of course, but I will not spend my time trying to deprogram people who are always acting in bad faith.
I guess though, that this is mostly when it comes to people who are always online. Canvassing in the rust belt would probably be easier.
I'm a lot more militant and angry about it nowadays, not extending the olive branch very far. It takes so much of a toll on me to sit there and have to argue with people about the value of human life. I'm just too emotionally vested to stomach it.
My approach has more turned into "if the dog can't behave, put it in the dog cage, or euthanize it". Not literally of course, but I will not spend my time trying to deprogram people who are always acting in bad faith.
I guess though, that this is mostly when it comes to people who are always online. Canvassing in the rust belt would probably be easier.
To me it's a worthwhile endeavour, especially if it has political consequences that favour the oppressed. People are(almost) never a lost cause.
This is true, but once again I have to point out that EMOTIONAL LABOR IS LABOR. People are mad because they're being asked to take on an extremely taxing second job for free in exchange for the possibility on making someone less bigoted for some amount of time.
This is even more dangerous than the My Immortal drinking game
That will teach me laconism and shit punctuation will only get me so far. Yeah, I really dislike that tweet in how dismissive it is, his use of "perhaps" encapsulating it all.
We're on the same page. If these guys absolutely believe the only remedy to such a great social ailment is a particular kind of counseling and coddling, the least they could do is start recognizing it's a full time job and paying fucking money for it, in recognition of the effort and exhaustion this would bring. As long as these people frame it as a hobby minorities should take, while downplaying the shift of responsibility they're arguing for, they're just spouting patronizing platitudes with no real world applications.
TLDR: put your money where your mouth is or shut the fuck up.
I think we already knew that people lose their bigotry the more they are exposed with humanity and dignity to the issues they are prejudiced against.
But I also don't think any individual owes a bigot their patience and effort. That's not all on you to teach someone they're being a bigot and y'all them through the issues, especially if they're standing against you in bad faith.
If you have the energy, go for it. If not, save yourself today and maybe someday things align for you to teach them.
But I also don't think any individual owes a bigot their patience and effort. That's not all on you to teach someone they're being a bigot and y'all them through the issues, especially if they're standing against you in bad faith.
If you have the energy, go for it. If not, save yourself today and maybe someday things align for you to teach them.
It's useful information, and of course people are free to follow its recommendations or ignore them. I understand that many people are not in a position to want to talk to bigots, and that's totally fine. I don't blame them.
I think this research is important because a lot of people have been wondering where all this craziness came from and why it's grown so fast, so it's definitely an issue that requires study. Racist groups are actively recruiting people, and there needs to be research to try to figure out what to do about it.
At the very least, this research may help those who are seeing a friend or family member start to slide into that pit and are wondering what to do about it.
I think this research is important because a lot of people have been wondering where all this craziness came from and why it's grown so fast, so it's definitely an issue that requires study. Racist groups are actively recruiting people, and there needs to be research to try to figure out what to do about it.
At the very least, this research may help those who are seeing a friend or family member start to slide into that pit and are wondering what to do about it.
We do have studies and statistics. Nobody gives a shit about those results though, which is how we know this study is useless.
My own family, friends and acquaintances first and foremost. And that is something anyone can do.
Sometimes you gotta do the job you're usually paid for probono,
if it means putting these people in their place, the much the better , rite?