What do you guys think?
Yes. As long as you don’t act on your hatred. I have so far managed to NOT throttle to death hundreds of people despite wanting to. People tend to call me nice.
It’s obviously a serious flaw but racism doesn’t generally define your whole being.
I think there are some self-aware racists who were raised that way, and it’s a very ingrained way of looking at the world, but intellectually they know it is wrong, and make an effort not to be racist. If they have any say in hiring or firing at work, they are very careful not to look and the race of prospective employees, and they may even deliberately try to raise their children to be different by putting them in schools where they experience a mix of people. Some may not go that far, but they would at least welcome a non-white child into their home if their own child made friends with him or her. They might bite their tongue while doing it, because it feels wrong viscerally, but intellectually, they know it is the right thing to do. People like this are being, or at least trying, to be, good people. They can’t help the way they were raised, but they are responsible for their adult behavior nonetheless.
But anyone who acts on it, no, they cannot be a good person. They can be sweet as pie and generous as a saint to white people, but if they refuse to extend cordiality to people of other races, they are not good people.
Now, if we are talking about minorities who have been personally hurt by racism, and choose to avoid people of other races, that’s another thing entirely. I don’t blame people like that. I wish they would give us another chance at some point, but I have experienced some pretty awful anti-Semitism first hand, and it’s scary. It didn’t make me right off all white people, but it did make me wary of a particular town in Indiana for a while. If another gentile had not immediately come to my defense in one incident, it would have been much scarier. I think the handful of things I’ve experienced are things black people experience pretty often, so while I hope they don’t write me off with everyone else, I understand the impulse to do so. They can still be good people, as long as they just disassociate from white people. When they return in kind, then no, they are not being good people either.
My 2 cents.
I think mean and hateful things all the time. But 99.9% of the time, I don’t act on them.
Knowing is half the battle.
“Everybody’s a little bit racist.”
I’ve found that to be very true, but acting on these feelings, or espousing them verbally, is a different matter.
I think everyone has racist, sexist, or homophobic thoughts, or any sort of negative generalizing perspectives regarding other groups. At this point in human history, you’d hardly be human if you didn’t.
What’s important is to recognize when you interpret your perspectives in a hateful, or even a negative way, and struggle to correct that fault. It’s not always easy, and sometimes, especially when challanged, one can get defensive, instead of listening to a differing viewpoint.
But if you work toward becoming more tolerant of other groups, yes, you are a good person. You are trying to improve.
Now, if you act out of hatred, or justify your prejudices in the face of the true facts, then you are a throwback to a less enlightened age, and that is your misfortune. You are a lesser person.
If you cause hurt to someone this way, then no, you are not a good person.
How many flaws can a person have, or how significant can they be, before that person is no longer a good person?
I don’t, and I know several people who don’t.
But we believe very strongly in traditional morality, so haters and bigots CLAIM that we are racist, sexist, and homophobic.
Could you explain what it is about your “traditional morality” that these “haters and bigots” are mischaracterizing?
I think the answer is “yes,” and I have a third-hand anecdote to support the belief. A Doper for whom I have a great deal of respect (and consequently, whose word I am inclined to accept), has written persuasively about the basic goodness and fundamental decency of his late grandfather, for whom he has also laid out a strong case for having been racist as hell.
The OP is looking for opinions so I’ll move this to IMHO.
Disagree entirely. Saying someone is hardly human for their lack of hatred for others is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard someone say.
In my experience delving into the thoughts of people who make this claim, generally the claim indicates more about the person’s self-awareness than it indicates about the person’s lack of racist thoughts. Maybe you’re the exception.
The OP has some ill-defined terms. What’s required of a person for them to be “racist”: a single racist thought? A series of assumptions about people of different races? Deliberate acts based on racist thoughts? Membership in a racist organization? What’s required of someone for them to not be a good person?
I think virtually everyone in the US has racist thoughts and impulses sometimes. People who deny possessing them tend to deny themselves the ability to work against those impulses, and that makes it a lot harder for them to be a good person. The way you remain a good person, despite having racist thoughts and impulses, is to be aware of them, to watch for them, to work against them.
If by “traditional morality” you mean things like gays should not get married and should keep their gayness hidden in the privacy of their own homes, women should only take on traditional “women work” and blacks and Mexicans are “those people” and they wouldn’t get shot if only they got better at kowtowing to the cops, then yes, that is “racist, sexist and homophobic”.
No one wakes up in the morning, puts on their Klan hood, polishes their SS medals and says “I’m going to be the best bigot I can be today”. They just believe their way of thinking is “traditional morality”. Blacks, gays, immigrants, feminists and Liberals are “fine”, so long as they stay where they belong.
No. If you only good to people of your own race because you’re a racist you’re not a good person.
ETA: if you are going to granularize what racists means, it would make this entire discussion moot.
I don’t consider people with racist thoughts a “bad person”. Unless they openly express those opinions or act on them. A KKK member is a bad person. Somebody that tries to sideswipe a black pedestrian with their car is a bad person.
Thoughts and feelings are one of the few freedoms that should never be policed. What somebody thinks or says in private is none of my business. I’m certainly not going to judge that person for what he/she thinks.
If an unsliced apple has a rotten core, is it still good?
Abraham Lincoln was racist. He very clearly thought that blacks were inferior to whites. Unlike many people of his time, even though he thought they were inferior, he still thought whites should be kind to them and not mistreat them, and not enslave them. However, he was very uncomfortable with the idea of blacks and whites marrying. He thought that they should remain separate.
I’m not knocking old Abe here. Considering the environment he grew up in, his views were pretty radical and progressive at the time. You don’t go from complete racism and slavery to complete equality in one generation. And to be fair, Lincoln’s views did change a bit over the years. He gradually began to see them as more intelligent and more equal to whites as time went on. But he was very vocal against slavery long before he began to see blacks and whites as equals.
I think that even though he was racist, most people would consider Lincoln to be a good person, and despite his racist views, he did a lot to help blacks and to end slavery.
I consider actions a test of character. Does somebody stop and help a person that trips and falls? Do they check on their older neighbors when they are ill?
I had an aunt and uncle that used racist language. My aunt often picked up groceries for an older black neighbor that no longer drove. Took her to doctor appointments a few times. My aunt used to say “N’s are God’s children too and are no different than us”. My aunt was influenced by the environment that she grew up in. The good and bad elements. She never let her racist views influence how she treated people. She still treated everyone with respect and dignity.
There will be a time when racism is finally gone. But that’s going to takes several more generations.