# Hello. I am a racist. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 18, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590 "2010-08-18T00:25:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/221 "2010-08-18T16:09:25Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Look, I am not a moderator and don’t pretend to be one but this guy seems legit. Engage him in some debate SDMB style and put up your best stuff to see where it goes. > [@Princhester](#): > > We don’t learn anything by shouting someone down. We don’t learn anything regardless, because there’s nothing to learn. We had a self-professed honest-to-God unrepentant and untreated pedophile here perfectly willing to answer questions about pedophilia, and I didn’t ask him a single question or engage him in any way because I didn’t care what he thought. I deal with pedophiles on a regular basis in my job, and they’re not rare snowflakes with a lot of insight to offer. Pedophiles are pedophiles because they have a mental illness that makes them attracted to children, and the ones that don’t see anything wrong with it are that way are that way because they engage in cognitive distortions that give them mental justifications for it that are completely airtight in their own minds and are utterly transparent to everyone else. After a while that became apparent to all, and he was banned. Similarly, I don’t need a racist to tell me why he thinks the way he does, I already know why racists think the way they do. They lack critical thinking skills, they don’t understand confirmation bias, and they generally aren’t very truthful or even insightful about their motivations. Here in a few more pages it will be apparent that this racist is pretty much like every other racist on the planet, that there’s absolutely nothing to be gained by attempting to engage him, and then this will get locked and he’ll be banned. Then we can get back to something more constructive than debating a racist, like playing handball against the drapes. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/222 "2010-08-18T16:09:53Z")
So far this thread has called into question the OP’s self-identification as a southerner and a racist. By the way, Ariovistus, as far as you can recall, prior to your PTSD and head trauma, were you a bigot, or as much of a bigot? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/223 "2010-08-18T16:14:13Z")
More a matter of when you are from than where. Amongst my many cousins still in Texas, a couple I would think of as racist, but you ask them and they’d say no. Their parents generation, my various uncles and aunts, had no problem saying they were racists, and would blink uncomprehendingly at you for asking such a dumb question. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/224 "2010-08-18T16:34:19Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > > [@Princhester](#): > > > > I can just picture a racist saying this about being given an opportunity to talk to a black person. > > So you believe that judging a group of people based on the color of their skin is equivalent to judging a group of people based on their stated beliefs? > > Iiiiiiiinteresting. But stupid. Um, I’d really appreciate it if you stopped being bigoted against bigotry. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/225 "2010-08-18T16:37:23Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It’s not that I don’t want to read the whole thread (I skipped a couple of pages), but I’m a busy little negro and I have to get to work. Lazy… ---
**Author:** ![Ariovistus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Ariovistus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ariovistus)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/226 "2010-08-18T16:40:37Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > > [@Ariovistus](#): > > > > I think that their behavior, while it can be affected by I have observed blacks in America, blacks in Europe and blacks in Namibia, and they all have the same traits: overemotionalism, highly defined sense of tribalism, lack of forward planning, instant gratification, tendancy towards violence, impulsiveness, etc. > > **Namibia?** Namibia? You were in Namibia? Why, praytell? Were you a missionary? A mercenary? A fly on the wall? Perhaps you were reincarnated as part of Caesar’s army? Yes, Namibia. While I was on active duty, I was assigned to protect someone important while I was doing the Protective Services thing. I can’t really go into the who’s or what’s, but I can tell you that we have forces in Namibia. The Secret Squirrel type. In the military, this isn’t news in itself, since everyone knows where we got folks, so I’m not letting anything slip. But the Boss had to go to Namibia. I was chosen as part of the Advance Team. I went down with several others to make a meet with the local PD, set up Halls and Walls, etc.. spent a couple of lovely weeks in that dump. It was an excellent opportunity to see how the locals lived, too. Hope this answers your question. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/227 "2010-08-18T16:41:48Z")
Hey, I appreciate the OP’s candor. He’s not flopping out pejoratives or being a jerk. He’s at least willing to discuss his ways without flinging around shit like a pissed-off monkey. I don’t agree with him, but I consider his posts to be educational. When you can identify what causes a certain category of people to think a certain way, it goes towards more peaceful ways to resolve conflicts with them. I grew up with people like the OP, and I acted like them to fit in when I was a kid. When I was old enough to think for myself, I moved away from that. It’s mainly ignorance that keeps that mindset going, willing or not. Not everybody gets to grow up and live in enlightened, intelligent environments. They have to find such places on their own, and it can take a lot of steps to get there. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/228 "2010-08-18T16:47:34Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Hey, I appreciate the OP’s candor. He’s not flopping out pejoratives or being a jerk. Except on the other board, which he linked us to, where he openly uses the N word in describing those he hates so deeply. But hey, if you’re not Pol Pot, it’s perfectly fine to call people “niggers”, right? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/229 "2010-08-18T16:49:55Z")
> [@Ariovistus](#): > > You know, Andrew Jackson misspelled words constantly on the legal documents he prepared. Spelling didn’t matter- the conviction of the words did. The genocidaire Andrew Jackson doesn’t have a good reputation here. > [@Ariovistus](#): > > I have lived with (same room) blacks for years. I have observed them at parties I have been invited to, observed them on the streets, served next to them and seen how they live and treat each other, eaten dinner with them, sat next to them in class and shared fighting positions with them. All this experience was in the U.S. Army? Maybe you have a sampling problem. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/230 "2010-08-18T16:51:07Z")
> [@Ariovistus](#): > > > [@samclem](#): > > > > **Namibia?** Namibia? You were in Namibia? Why, praytell? Were you a missionary? A mercenary? A fly on the wall? Perhaps you were reincarnated as part of Caesar’s army? > > Yes, Namibia. > > While I was on active duty, I was assigned to protect someone important while I was doing the Protective Services thing. I can’t really go into the who’s or what’s, but I can tell you that we have forces in Namibia. The Secret Squirrel type. In the military, this isn’t news in itself, since everyone knows where we got folks, so I’m not letting anything slip. > > But the Boss had to go to Namibia. I was chosen as part of the Advance Team. I went down with several others to make a meet with the local PD, set up Halls and Walls, etc.. spent a couple of lovely weeks in that dump. It was an excellent opportunity to see how the locals lived, too. > > Hope this answers your question. This is a highly believable story! Thanks for sharing. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/231 "2010-08-18T16:54:35Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > This is a highly believable story! Thanks for sharing. Didn’t you hear? It’s Secret Squirrel shit. I sure hope he wasn’t guarding our black President. . . ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/232 "2010-08-18T16:57:34Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > **Namibia?** Namibia? You were in Namibia? Why, praytell? Were you a missionary? A mercenary? A fly on the wall? Perhaps you were reincarnated as part of Caesar’s army? Caesar’s army? Are you thinking of **Nubia**? ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/233 "2010-08-18T16:58:24Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > We don’t learn anything regardless, because there’s nothing to learn. We had a self-professed honest-to-God unrepentant and untreated pedophile here perfectly willing to answer questions about pedophilia, and I didn’t ask him a single question or engage him in any way because I didn’t care what he thought. I deal with pedophiles on a regular basis in my job, and they’re not rare snowflakes with a lot of insight to offer. Pedophiles are pedophiles because they have a mental illness that makes them attracted to children, and the ones that don’t see anything wrong with it are that way are that way because they engage in cognitive distortions that give them mental justifications for it that are completely airtight in their own minds and are utterly transparent to everyone else. After a while that became apparent to all, and he was banned. > > Similarly, I don’t need a racist to tell me why he thinks the way he does, I already know why racists think the way they do. They lack critical thinking skills, they don’t understand confirmation bias, and they generally aren’t very truthful or even insightful about their motivations. Here in a few more pages it will be apparent that this racist is pretty much like every other racist on the planet, that there’s absolutely nothing to be gained by attempting to engage him, and then this will get locked and he’ll be banned. Then we can get back to something more constructive than debating a racist, like playing handball against the drapes. Outstanding post. ---
**Author:** ![Ariovistus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Ariovistus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ariovistus)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/234 "2010-08-18T17:04:08Z")
> [@LeeshaJoy](#): > > I have a question for **Ariovistus** , asked in good faith. That question is this: > > **Why do you choose to define yourself as a racist?** > > Note that I did not ask “Why are you a racist?”. I asked why you _choose to define yourself_ as a racist. Just from the OP, one can see that that’s not all there is to you. You’re a farmer. You’re a veteran. You’ve traveled the world. You’re proud of your cultural heritage. You probably have a lot of other interests that haven’t come up here. And yet you introduced yourself not as any of those things, but as a racist. Not only that, but you spend your free time in an online community expressly dedicated to racism, to the exclusion of all else. > > I look at what you write and I see someone who has chosen to define himself primarily through his contempt for a category of people. And I can only ask, in all sincerity: **Why?** In my original post, I identified myself as what you all would call a ‘racist’, but made a special effort to say that that is not how I thought of myself. I felt it was simpler to just come out and identify myself as such, instead of saying how I feel and be buried under waves of accusations. Better to just get it out of the way from the beginning and then I can sort the sincere folks from the ones why just want to spew insults. If I came on and said “Hi. I’m Ariovistus and I build Mission/Arts & Crafts style furniture” (which I do, btw), I would have gotten perhaps one or two replies, mostly about what I was doing here… Honestly, I do not like blacks. That alone is enough to cause a wave of insults and accusations here. But I came here for a discussion, not to open myself up for abuse, though I knew that was a probability. I found that there are plenty of people who accuse me of feeling the way I do based solely on skin color, when it is their actions that disgust me, not what color they are. Bottom line is: people self-segregate. If living in a widely-mixed society was the normal state, the Government wouldn’t need the Battalions of lawyers and activists, police and other entities, to enforce it. But they do.. the number of lawyers and enforcers for racial diversity are legion. I ask the question: why are they needed if a multicultural society is a good thing? People would reach that state on their own and not have it forced on them by do-gooder busybody government types. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/235 "2010-08-18T17:05:52Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > > [@Kyla](#): > > > > This is a highly believable story! Thanks for sharing. > > Didn’t you hear? It’s Secret Squirrel shit. I sure hope he wasn’t guarding our black President. . . Well, he can’t tell us, so we’ll never know. What with it being so _secret_ and all. I’m so impressed that **Ariovistus** was chosen for such a secretive and important mission! He must be one helluva guy. ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/236 "2010-08-18T17:13:26Z")
> [@Ariovistus](#): > > I ask the question: why are they needed if a multicultural society is a good thing? People would reach that state on their own and not have it forced on them by do-gooder busybody government types. Why is murder bad? Why do we have to force people not to murder by having do-gooder busybody government types? If not murdering is so great, people should just do that on their own. Right? ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/237 "2010-08-18T17:15:39Z")
> [@fluiddruid](#): > > > [@Ariovistus](#): > > > > I ask the question: why are they needed if a multicultural society is a good thing? People would reach that state on their own and not have it forced on them by do-gooder busybody government types. > > Why is murder bad? Why do we have to force people not to murder by having do-gooder busybody government types? If not murdering is so great, people should just do that on their own. > > Right? Murder isn’t bad. If it’s on black people, I mean. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/238 "2010-08-18T17:18:07Z")
It should have been end of discussion once everyone saw the link in the OP. You can’t have a meaningful exchange of views with a race-hater. And he’s lying about not hating blacks. Nobody with any respect at all for black people would post on that site. Hey OP, whatever your name is, just go back to the shithole you crawled out from. You carry far too much ignorance and bitterness to ever gain anything from this board. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/239 "2010-08-18T17:18:47Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > > [@fluiddruid](#): > > > > Why is murder bad? Why do we have to force people not to murder by having do-gooder busybody government types? If not murdering is so great, people should just do that on their own. > > > > Right? > > Murder isn’t bad. If it’s on black people, I mean. Then it is technically referred to as “pest removal.” ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590/240 "2010-08-18T17:19:13Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > > [@fluiddruid](#): > > > > Why is murder bad? Why do we have to force people not to murder by having do-gooder busybody government types? If not murdering is so great, people should just do that on their own. > > > > Right? > > Murder isn’t bad. If it’s on black people, I mean. Heck, that’s not even murder in Kain-tuck. That’s just thinnin’ the herd… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hello-i-am-a-racist/550590.md?page=13)