Apology for a bigot

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

…early reports from the USDA estimate world sugar production for 2002-2003 will approach 140 million tons. With an increase of almost 5 million tons, one would expect production increase to be related to an increased demand, with resultant price increases.

However, an overwhelming supply of “Glurge Sugar”, one of the most insidious of the frequently found naturally occuring forms, has been discovered in this thread.

Experts predict sugar futures to plummet in response to the massive amounts of syrupy sweetness. Indicators point to divesting yourself immediately.

Of course, any financial advice like this must be taken with a grain of salt.

22

Scylla,

First, that is one of the best OPs I have ever read.

Second, I understand where you are coming from. My Grandmother was the nicest racist you would ever want to meet. It is very hard to describe my Grandmothers attitude. For the last ten years of her life her next door neighbors were a black family. My Grandma and the family got along wonderfully. When my Grandma would bake she would give the neighbors a batch of cookies. If my Grandma was doing yard work the neighbors would come help her. She liked them a lot.

Yet, if she saw a story on the news about a crime involving a black person she would say things like “Those Niggers aren’t civilized”. I argued with her about her attitude for a while but gave up.

After a couple of years I realized something. My Grandma grew up in an era where her beliefs were the norm. My Grandma’s attitude basically came down to one phrase, “Birds of a Feather”. My Grandma extended her beliefs beyond black and white. In her world blacks didn’t date whites, Catholics didn’t date Protestants and Italians didn’t date Mexicans. She believed that people should stay with their ‘groups’. In the world she grew up in there were lines that you didn’t cross. You could be friends with people from different backgrounds but, in her mind at least, there was a fundamental difference between people with different backgrounds.

My Grandma wasn’t hateful towards others even though she used terms that I found offensive. And when she dealt with other people she treated them as individuals and ignored their race. Yet she still kept her overall bias. It still doesn’t make much sense to me. I remember my Grandma telling me that she bought Nell, the black girl who lived next door, a graduation present and then ten minutes later my Grandma was bitching about how the ‘niggers’ were causing all kinds of problems.

Slee

23

Scylla, in this thread you tell us a story about your “n” word repeating grandfather in an attempt to justify racism. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=154113
I’ll assume the story is true for the purposes of this thread, but how many such sob stories have you told us? Well, I did a search, and the results are posted below. (Only threads started by Scylla, not posts in threads started by others.) I’ve concluded that Scylla has an enormous talent for writing, which he exercises in the furtherance of prejudice way too often. Get a clue and get some therapy dude.

The number of times you gratuitously use the “n” word and the context you use is simply a justification for ignoring the pain it causes other people and your own racism and bigotry.

We can only presume that you foisted this tear-jerk story on us to try to justify your reprehensible point of view in this thread.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=152154

Lots of people can write evocatively, but to give us this “tears big as horse turds” kinda stuff as a justification for your prejudices takes the cake.

True to RNC marching orders you attempt to distract from the racist record of Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott and the rest of the Washington branch of the Klan known as the RNC by smearing your opponents with willful lies, distortions and distractions. That the Republicans would even honor as racist a man as Strom Thurmond on his retirement is despicable. Frankly, I had a celebration. It’s damn lucky for them that they were able to use Lott as a scapegoat for all the other people honoring his long career of racism and segregation. Just why would anybody honor such an unrepentant old racist is unfathomable to me.

http://journale.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html

Is a collection of photos for what Thurmond stood for, and the consequences of this kind of thinking. He took one stand in his life, never sponsored a piece of major legislation, but was the focus of these racist crackers coasting on his “laurels” ever since. I think photo 14 particularly shows the fruit of labors like Thurmond’s. Photos of this stuff stopped being marketed as postcards (God Damn souvenir postcards!), but let there be no doubt, this is what made Thurmond so beloved to the later day Republicans: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/dixiecrat1.html

But now, you try to tell us how you came in touch with your racist side by this charming story of dear old Grampa. How touching. I noticed that you didn’t include in your story his point of view. Grandpa was a man. He has good and bad like any man. If you had asked him, he would have said that he and the bad guys had good and bad in them, and that it was wrong to give in to the bad, and we hope our children don’t have our prejudices. He would have told you that it was wrong to call you neighbor friend a “n”, because it was disrespectful, and it was disrespectful to think of her that way. Every human being deserves dignity and respect. And it is disrespectful to fling the word about in this thread. Yet, over, and over it appears in the OP.

So everyone we don’t like but our own “heroic” family members is worthy of condemnation? You spent a lot of time and effort tearing down Robert Byrd in that thread. Robert Byrd has got more jobs in his state of West Virginia for more minority families than probably any other politician in the country. When the military, which has a high disproportion of poor minority recruits compared with the rest of the population was faced with a war, an activity that people will die in, including civilian Iraqis that have never done harm to anyone, Senator Byrd conducted a long lone filibuster, working for hours without pause, without a drink, standing all the while, and over scorn of folks like you to try to stop that war. He fought for what he believed was right in his late 80s like fucking Horatius at the bridge. He admitted to the world and himself long ago that he had been a racist, and he has atoned in deeds.

You think that maybe his letting the “n” word slip from his lips recently and 50 years ago being a member of the KKK could be forgiven or at least his efforts at redemption acknowledged by people like you in their effort to distract from their own racism. You might think that Sen. Byrd’s family has similar affection for him that you have to your Grandpa. You might think that you would learn not to treat an old man with such contempt by your story.

But your story, if it is true, (and it seems that every time someone shows you up in a thread you whip out one of these martyrdom by association threads), only proves that you repeatedly use the “n” word and toss it in people’s faces. Well, you regret that his caretakers don’t know the full story. C’mon man of guts, fearless Scylla, taking on all comers in your foot-races, calling your own daughter Poop, balls busting with unreleased cum, Catholic BJU supporter, unrepentant right wing nut: its time to stand up for the dignity of a MAN, a man who in his dying years is tormented with the sin of saying “n” all his life, and now when he doesn’t have any wits left about him says it all day long to his caretakers who despise him for it (how is that for karma, anyway). PRINT OUT YOUR DIATRIBE, GO TO THE COPY SHOP, RUN OFF A HUNDRED COPIES AND TAKE IT TO HOME AND SHOVE IT IN THE FACE OF THE WORKERS THERE. Go on, prove you didn’t write this to wrap yourself in the faded glory of another man, using a hero’s weakness to justify your own failing.

Have you the balls to show it to the people he is unwittingly insulting and who change his diapers? Or were you just using him and them to hide behind? Let me tell you something about people who care for the elderly, the African Americans you haven’t the balls to show your racist diatribe to. They already know he was a good man. I already know it. And I also know that Trent Lott has some good in him, and Strom Thurmond did too. But they should not be our leaders because this flaw is nothing short of the spreading of hatred. And they should acknowledge that their records on voting have been wrong. They should not be held up to youth or adults as people who’s despicable behavior is excusable. It isn’t.

But until people in this world soften their hearts when they are with their own families and make themselves vulnerable to the potential for occasional hurt, this is going to go on. When Grandpa is abandoned by his family, these workers are the ones that respect his dignity enough to make their lives into meeting his most intimate needs. What they do is every bit as worthy of respect as what we do for a living, maybe more so. These folks are no less saints than Mother Theresa. It’s just that it won’t help any church do marketing to elevate them. And they are hurt by what Grandpa says. And they turn their cheek one way and the other. Because they know something good about your Grandpa that you will never know: that every human being is deserving of respect and caring.

But more than being insulted while working with them, a burden they willingly take on, they are betrayed by people who vote against their interests every day, who are against raising the minimum wage to it’s historic buying level of the 1930s. They are hurt by predatory lending practices, they are hurt by poor school funding, and their children are burdened with a national debt so that millionaires can have an easier tax burden. They are hurt by accusations of minority voter fraud, shrill inflammations of hatred against immigrants as a substitute symbolic “other”.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40729
The Amish. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31747 The same sort of “I’m the victim” stuff. Look, everybody has had to deal with bad neighbors, that’s hardly a justification for lumping a whole group of people. Of course, the anti-Amish stuff began here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=9619

And of course, here is some great revision of history arguing that the “people” in the Confederacy had the right to secede because they weren’t represented. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22421 Never mind that white people in the South were represented and black people were not.

24

Thanks Scylla. I have to say, had I heard your grandfather or anyone else talk like that, I would have had a terrible opinion of them right off the bat. But after reading your story, I’ll think twice before coming to conclusions in the future. Thanks again. You managed to show us the human side that many people would never get to see because they wouldn’t be able to look past some of his ideas.

25

I am Sparticus, you will stop this shit right now.

Scylla has related a rather personal story in this thread, and then you think that’s grounds for launching a full-on Pit-style attack on him, digging up every thread he’s made that you happen to disagree with.

I don’t fucking think so.

You want to debate politics? Get thee to Great Debates. You want to call Scylla a racist right wing nut? We’ve got a forum for that too: The Pit.

Another post from you in this thread -other than a sincere apology to Scylla and the SDMB staff- will not be tolerated. Should you have any objections to that verdict, I refer you to the Pit as well.

Oh, and Scylla? Great post.

26

No Coldfire, I stand by every word I wrote and for the reasons I wrote them. If you must ban me for it, I will consider that an honor.

I dug up every thread he started on the subject that I happen to disagree with, hardly every thread he wrote that I disagree with. I think it more than amply demonstrates that Scylla is using this board to further hatred in the form of racism on a consistent basis.

It’s not a great OP, it perpetuates a despciable tolerance of racism. Kinda like the Turner Diaries.

Now Coldfire, cash that check your mouth just wrote. I’m not backing down a damn inch. You don’t have it in you to get someone like me to back down.

Oh, and just in case you missed it the first time, here it is again, in full, below. What are you going to do to my protest to your abuse of your authority?

And no, it was not a great story, it was great writing. The story was in praise of racism and the use of the “n” word.

Scylla, in this thread you tell us a story about your “n” word repeating grandfather in an attempt to justify racism. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...threadid=154113
I’ll assume the story is true for the purposes of this thread, but how many such sob stories have you told us? Well, I did a search, and the results are posted below. (Only threads started by Scylla, not posts in threads started by others.) I’ve concluded that Scylla has an enormous talent for writing, which he exercises in the furtherance of prejudice way too often. Get a clue and get some therapy dude.

The number of times you gratuitously use the “n” word and the context you use is simply a justification for ignoring the pain it causes other people and your own racism and bigotry.

We can only presume that you foisted this tear-jerk story on us to try to justify your reprehensible point of view in this thread.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...threadid=152154

Lots of people can write evocatively, but to give us this “tears big as horse turds” kinda stuff as a justification for your prejudices takes the cake.

True to RNC marching orders you attempt to distract from the racist record of Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott and the rest of the Washington branch of the Klan known as the RNC by smearing your opponents with willful lies, distortions and distractions. That the Republicans would even honor as racist a man as Strom Thurmond on his retirement is despicable. Frankly, I had a celebration. It’s damn lucky for them that they were able to use Lott as a scapegoat for all the other people honoring his long career of racism and segregation. Just why would anybody honor such an unrepentant old racist is unfathomable to me.

http://journale.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html

Is a collection of photos for what Thurmond stood for, and the consequences of this kind of thinking. He took one stand in his life, never sponsored a piece of major legislation, but was the focus of these racist crackers coasting on his “laurels” ever since. I think photo 14 particularly shows the fruit of labors like Thurmond’s. Photos of this stuff stopped being marketed as postcards (God Damn souvenir postcards!), but let there be no doubt, this is what made Thurmond so beloved to the later day Republicans: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/dixiecrat1.html

But now, you try to tell us how you came in touch with your racist side by this charming story of dear old Grampa. How touching. I noticed that you didn’t include in your story his point of view. Grandpa was a man. He has good and bad like any man. If you had asked him, he would have said that he and the bad guys had good and bad in them, and that it was wrong to give in to the bad, and we hope our children don’t have our prejudices. He would have told you that it was wrong to call you neighbor friend a “n”, because it was disrespectful, and it was disrespectful to think of her that way. Every human being deserves dignity and respect. And it is disrespectful to fling the word about in this thread. Yet, over, and over it appears in the OP.

So everyone we don’t like but our own “heroic” family members is worthy of condemnation? You spent a lot of time and effort tearing down Robert Byrd in that thread. Robert Byrd has got more jobs in his state of West Virginia for more minority families than probably any other politician in the country. When the military, which has a high disproportion of poor minority recruits compared with the rest of the population was faced with a war, an activity that people will die in, including civilian Iraqis that have never done harm to anyone, Senator Byrd conducted a long lone filibuster, working for hours without pause, without a drink, standing all the while, and over scorn of folks like you to try to stop that war. He fought for what he believed was right in his late 80s like fucking Horatius at the bridge. He admitted to the world and himself long ago that he had been a racist, and he has atoned in deeds.

You think that maybe his letting the “n” word slip from his lips recently and 50 years ago being a member of the KKK could be forgiven or at least his efforts at redemption acknowledged by people like you in their effort to distract from their own racism. You might think that Sen. Byrd’s family has similar affection for him that you have to your Grandpa. You might think that you would learn not to treat an old man with such contempt by your story.

But your story, if it is true, (and it seems that every time someone shows you up in a thread you whip out one of these martyrdom by association threads), only proves that you repeatedly use the “n” word and toss it in people’s faces. Well, you regret that his caretakers don’t know the full story. C’mon man of guts, fearless Scylla, taking on all comers in your foot-races, calling your own daughter Poop, balls busting with unreleased cum, Catholic BJU supporter, unrepentant right wing nut: its time to stand up for the dignity of a MAN, a man who in his dying years is tormented with the sin of saying “n” all his life, and now when he doesn’t have any wits left about him says it all day long to his caretakers who despise him for it (how is that for karma, anyway). PRINT OUT YOUR DIATRIBE, GO TO THE COPY SHOP, RUN OFF A HUNDRED COPIES AND TAKE IT TO HOME AND SHOVE IT IN THE FACE OF THE WORKERS THERE. Go on, prove you didn’t write this to wrap yourself in the faded glory of another man, using a hero’s weakness to justify your own failing.

Have you the balls to show it to the people he is unwittingly insulting and who change his diapers? Or were you just using him and them to hide behind? Let me tell you something about people who care for the elderly, the African Americans you haven’t the balls to show your racist diatribe to. They already know he was a good man. I already know it. And I also know that Trent Lott has some good in him, and Strom Thurmond did too. But they should not be our leaders because this flaw is nothing short of the spreading of hatred. And they should acknowledge that their records on voting have been wrong. They should not be held up to youth or adults as people who’s despicable behavior is excusable. It isn’t.

But until people in this world soften their hearts when they are with their own families and make themselves vulnerable to the potential for occasional hurt, this is going to go on. When Grandpa is abandoned by his family, these workers are the ones that respect his dignity enough to make their lives into meeting his most intimate needs. What they do is every bit as worthy of respect as what we do for a living, maybe more so. These folks are no less saints than Mother Theresa. It’s just that it won’t help any church do marketing to elevate them. And they are hurt by what Grandpa says. And they turn their cheek one way and the other. Because they know something good about your Grandpa that you will never know: that every human being is deserving of respect and caring.

But more than being insulted while working with them, a burden they willingly take on, they are betrayed by people who vote against their interests every day, who are against raising the minimum wage to it’s historic buying level of the 1930s. They are hurt by predatory lending practices, they are hurt by poor school funding, and their children are burdened with a national debt so that millionaires can have an easier tax burden. They are hurt by accusations of minority voter fraud, shrill inflammations of hatred against immigrants as a substitute symbolic “other”.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb…&threadid=40729
The Amish. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb…&threadid=31747 The same sort of “I’m the victim” stuff. Look, everybody has had to deal with bad neighbors, that’s hardly a justification for lumping a whole group of people. Of course, the anti-Amish stuff began here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...p?threadid=9619

And of course, here is some great revision of history arguing that the “people” in the Confederacy had the right to secede because they weren’t represented. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb…&threadid=22421 Never mind that white people in the South were represented and black people were not.

27

I don’t think Coldfire was saying you COULDN’T respond in such a way to Scylla, but that this forum was not appropriate. Coldfire gave you two options: Great Debates and The Pit. You didn’t have to “back down” you just had to take it to the appropriate forum!

That being said, I had the nearly exact same relationship with my grandfather who passed away right after Thanksgiving. A retired Air Force Colonel, celebrated for his bravery. He used to tell this amazing story about being shot down during the war and bribing his way back to civilation with a couple of gold coins.

Great southern gentlemen, pillar of his church and absolutely devoted to his second wife (my dad’s mom died when he was in high school).

A very good grandfather in every way (he used to pull my teeth and give ME a dollar!) but used the N word nearly every chance he got. It was a very different generation. I can’t excuse my grandfather for being a bigot, I can only try to understand the circumstances of his life that made him that way and hope that those attitudes, that casual racisim is slowly fading out. Fading out like beloved heros like my granddad.

28

Coldfire,The original post is no different that Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. A masterly use of the craft in an unredeemably evil cause. Riefenstahl at 100 years of age is still unrepentant, spewing the exact sort of excuses seen here: we didn’t mean anything by it, we didn’t know it was in furtherance of evil, blah, blah, blah.

You think it will never happen again? In an earlier time you might have been among the people who thought it couldn’t happen in the first place. After all, who remembers the Armenians? Open your eyes, see what is going on right now.

Apparently you haven’t bothered to open the links I collected so you could see the consequences of being so polite about racism that nothing is said. I’m beyond shocked and outraged that this goes. I’m disgusted at it. How many times can someone say “n” in a public place (in a sentence or not) and not understand the violence that is going on, the indignity being heaped on people?

The “n” word is the most degrading epithet in North America. I know you live in Europe, so maybe you don’t understand. “N” means something more inferior than feces and unworthy any kind of dignity, disgusting and unwanted. It’s what the Nazis thought of the Jews. And the same sort of thing has been perpetuated against African Americans. Look at the damn links.

What Scylla said was 100 times more offensive than anything I did. And while I appreciate your efforts to keep a nice clean forum, the OP is just beyond everything in its manipulative vileness in consistently repeating the “n” word. I wouldn’t have bothered to do 10 hours of research confirming that if I didn’t feel it was the case. I will not quietly accept being chastised for doing my duty as a man.

29

Pit thread link.

30

References to putting people in boxes have been made. I agree that such is quite easy to do. “Packaging” allows for coasting through life, and in so doing distances one from living, allowing for a glance followed by a judgement and continuing on one’s merry way.

But on the other hand, we can’t always stop and smell the roses as such. In that respect, when stopping to smell the roses one should refrain from pissing on them before moving off. People who dismiss Scylla’s grand-dad as a bigot are doing just that. “The contempt of those who stand and watch means nothing, because they are nothing.” Verily.

I dig your work, Scylla. Your parable here rocks, but “Zen for Assholes” is still my favorite.

And, Sparticus, you jumped the gun on his profuse use of “nigger” in the OP. It was used to great literary effect, kicking the reader in the face with it so we’d be shocked every time he used it, perhaps much as he was hearing it in the past–first as a word for boogiemen, and second when he found out that it was used in reference to black people. Such was my impression.

All the same, that you think he used it as an intentional slur based on the moral of the story-- fuck it. Get to the pit, Sparticass.

31

I am sparticus, As CrankyAsAnOldMan showed, there are other and gentler ways to criticize this good piece of writing. If you still had a beef for the N word use you should have created a pit thread and then linked to it with an “I don’t agree with the use of the N word and I am complaining here:” etc.

OTOH: The use of “The contempt of those who stand and watch means nothing, because they are nothing.” is the place were Scylla lost me.
Having a large family always means I have a relative that helps me to keep things in perspective :). My relative (Home care worker) told me that there are people that he was taking care that were tough to manage because of prejudice. Did he stop to take care of them because he was being insulted? No.

IMO the care my relative gives ensures many people remain alive and still enjoy some things. It is like a slow lifesaver. But a lifesaver nevertheless. What I am trying to say here is that now the tables are turned: There is no reason to despise health care workers because they show contempt for a bigoted hero; they still do the job under extraordinary conditions. IMO many of the people who work in those circumstances are also heroes in a way.

And yes, I also had other relatives that were like Scylla’s grandpa. I don’t hate them; they make me embarrassed, but only on specific occasions. And it is those occasions when I do tell those relatives they are not doing the right thing. If some one is a hero one can use that as a panacea against attacks, but only for a while, because all glory does not last, especially if there are no other good deeds to follow.

32

And Godwin smiles.

:rolleyes:

33

Scylla’s post reminded me of a book I recently read, My Traitor’s Heart. It was written by a white South African and shows his search for the truth in a racially divided African, he having come from a racist family. It shows that things are not as black and white as I’d like them to be.

And yes, I think the word nigger was appropriate for the effect that the OP seeked and I didn’t feel the least offended by its use. It was a wonderful story.

34

I commented on this piece of writing in the pit thread, but apparently it was irrelevant there. So, I ask here, for those who loved this writing and felt that it justified the repetitive use of offensive profanities, what is the narrator’s conclusion about racism? Does he condemn or condone it?

Follow the logic of the writing, and the theme of the concept of “nigger” as expressed by the writer. If you do so, and still shed a tear, why should I not have contempt for you?

The theme of the complexity of people is worthy to explore; do bad people do good things? However, the author’s repetitive use of a racial epithet, and his discussion of his own racist attitudes, make this the overriding theme of the piece. Racism sits there, glaring in the middle of the story, and is only supported, not condemned by the remainder of the piece. The focus is not on the duality of the grandfather, but the feelings and beliefs of the narrator. These are disgusting.

I find the ideas expressed in the piece, and the conclusions reached, horrifying, and anything but “compelling,” “wonderful,” or required reading for bigots.

35

I forgot to add, the story and its conclusions made me feel that the piece, entitled “Apology for a bigot” is not an apology on behalf of the grandfather, but an apology on behalf of the narrator.

36

Please Hentor, fell free to have all the contempt in the world for me.

He condemns racism in this story, just as he condemns all of the sorts of narrow minded self righteous posturing which people, imperfect creatures that they are, so fondly adopt in order to justify feeling superior to someone else. This is a concept that you might want to think long and hard about. Bigotry takes many forms.

You’re right about one thing though, the focus of this story is as much the author as the grandfather, but then I thought that was obvious. And I fail to see what is disgusting about a tale of maturation and introspection. Growing up means questioning what we’re told, it means being afraid, sometimes making mistakes and realizing that the world is a very complicated place where the answers aren’t always as clear as we’d like them to be. But at least our author has matured, and that’s more than some of us can say, eh Hentor?

As for the authors repeated use of the word nigger, you know I personally count at least five different meanings for the word in this story. I think he might be making a point there, but who knows? I wish I could write this as elegantly as Scylla, but I’ve already seen his response in the Pit and I know that I’ll never match talent like that.

37

The theme of the story, Hentor, is that there is a contrast between people who rail against bigotry while standing around doing nothing, and overt bigots who dive into the water and risk their lives, not once but over and over, to save a man’s life — disregarding their own infirmities and his race.

Talk is cheap. A man’s morality is shaped, not by the words he uses, but by the decisions he makes.

38

For the time being, I will regard you as one who didn’t read for comprehension.

Please show me where he condemns racism in the story, and I will happily agree with you. I have thought long about this. Please do the same.

A story about maturation and growth is important and worthy. However, what is crucial in a story about growth is what state the protagonist ends up in. I suggest to you that the protagonist here ends up having matured little, specifically in his understanding of the complexity of human beings and in his understanding of racism.

Let me walk you through my reading of the story.

Grandpa is a hero who fights monsters. These monsters are “niggers” who steal and hurt people. Narrator takes this in without comprehension. Some of narrator’s best friends are black people. Narrator learns that this term just means black people. Narrator’s mother explains that the term is hurtful to all black people, even when they don’t hear it. Narrator is confused by this.

Narrator begins to describe the development of his negative regard for his grandfather:

Narrator uses a style to suggest that he is “learning” from school, popular culture, and his parents, and that “we were supposed to feel sorry for him.” The language suggests an effort akin to brainwashing – multiple sources repeating a message that is supposed to counter some other truth.

Narrator has fun with retired grandfather. Some homophobia is tossed in for good measure. More stigmatization of the grandfather by the parents occurs, describing him as “crazy.”

And then the crux of the conflict for narrator.

Thus, narrator believes that one can legitimately make a race-based distinction, that the term has validity to refer to evil black people. Narrator agrees with the grandfather, despite the efforts at indoctrination by parents, school and Sesame Street. Narrator explicitly rejects his mother’s belief that this term is hurtful and wrong.

Race riots occur at a nearby school.

Narrator “figures it out”; he is the victim of further indoctrination.

For the benefit of the reader unable to grasp the continued description of brainwashing and the ironic regard for the prevailing message, narrator describes these attitudes and SES-related explanations of crime as “happy crap.” The end result is “enlightenment” and contempt for grandpa. Society drives a wedge between grandfather and grandson.

The heroic actions of the grandfather remove the scales from the eyes of narrator. To what other state may he return than the essence of racism expressed in the passage about public school.

So the upshot, expressed by the narrator himself, is that he can only regard the grandfather with contempt or agreement, and that the ultimate truth regarding race, when one realizes that the efforts of society at brainwashing with happycrap are laid open for what they are by heroic behaviors, is

Listen, I don’t argue with the assertion that good people can think terrible things. Hey, some of my best brothers are republicans. What I object to strongly is that this is a tale worthy of being called beautiful and useful as a teaching tool to combat bigotry. It is clear that the narrator regards messages contrary to the vicious racism he himself expresses in public school as happy crap. The narrator, presumably an adult, remains himself incapable of comprehending what is supposed to be the main point of the story, and can only continue to think in dichotomies. In the eyes of the narrator, either the grandfather is a hero, or the grandfather is contemptible. The narrator disregards his mother’s teaching that using a profane epithet is hurtful. The narrator rejects the idea that racism is worthy of contempt. The narrator rejects the notion that a good person can have contemptible elements within him, and instead argues that contempt is reserved only for those who stand and wait, and appears to suggest that the only person who could call another on their racist thinking and behavior is someone who engages in heroism.

39

Lib, I agree that actions speak louder than words, but power of speech should not be underestimated. Which I guess I don’t need to remind anyone who studies American History.

Whether a bigot’s ugly speech teaches hate to children, or reinforces/validates the viewpoints of other bigots (who might not act so nobly–some are as hateful in deed as word), or simply makes an innocent person feel like utter shit about himself thanks to the epithet directed at him… I can, do and will have some measure of contempt for people who use offensive speech to ands about classes of people. It’s that simple. Even if they are people I love.

Why some dopers seem to have hostility towards this viewpoint is a great puzzlement to me.

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Cranky

I can’t speak for Scylla, obviously, but for me, Cranky, the problem is in the word “contempt”. To me, “contempt” carries in it a certain amount of smugness that I don’t feel is warrented. We don’t know better than our old racist realitives because we are better people, or because we have stronger charecters, or a more direct pipeline to the source of goodness. It’s just chance. We were fortunate enough to be born into a time and place where the people around us and before us thought long and hard and critically about their treatment of thier fellow man, and arrived at a set of principles that is, by any measure, morally superior to the principles our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were raised with.

That dosen’t mean that racist attitudes should be allowed to flourish without comment–afterall, the way we got to where we are today is by commenting even when it was uncomfortable and unpleasent. BUt even as we comment on racism, even as we refse to allow racist remarks to be made in front of our children, we need to have a little space in our heart that says “There but for the grace of God go I” (Or the Grace of chance, if you are as secular as I). Our grandchildren may well be shocked and appalled by some of the things that we do–when the time comes, I hope they will hold a little space for pity in their hearts, a little recognition that I am a flawed human doing the best I can.