Explain the difference please.
Nobody said anything about being proud of your race though. You can be proud of your race and not a racist. Or you can be proud of your race and be a racist.
Our new acquaintance also believes that sexual deviants (his term) should be executed and the unfit (also his term) prevented from breeding. So yeah, I suspect his ideal society does not include cross-breeding, as it were. We must protect the national gene pool or civilization will collapse! As history shows…
It’s even weirder because the band Skrewdriver mentioned as part of the controversy in the OP is a neo-Nazi band. I don’t mean in the metaphorical sense, I mean their fans like to pose giving the Nazi salute in front of Nazi flags, and they have songs directly and indirectly praising actual members of the Nazi party. I suspect a number of people in this thread aren’t really familiar with them, so:
Take a look at the pics in the article: NF & KKK lynched black people in effigy in Swansea - UK Indymedia
Or the lyrics of one of their hits Forty Six Years lyrics by Skrewdriver - original song full text. Official Forty Six Years lyrics, 2024 version | LyricsMode.com
Please do not use ethnic slurs to identify groups on the SDMB.
[ /Moderating ]
No. I say it like it is not weird that, happening to know racists, a person does not treat them like 1st century lepers, avoiding all possible contact with them.
Choosing not to socialize with racists is hardly treating them like 1st century lepers. It would, of course, greatly threaten the institution of the extended family dinner.
You are wrong.
Every society has had certain taboo expressions, often attempting to marginalize smaller groups within those societies. Most of what the political Right moans against as Political Correctness is just the effort of society to correct previous taboos. There are examples of actual PC nonsense, but they are far less prevalent than the hate speech against which it is directed.
Really? So, you do not uninvite family members to weddings, funerals, or even Christmas dinner, simply because they are racist? How often do you quit a club or a sports team because you discover that one or more member is racist? How often do you refuse to work with someone at your company because they are racist?
And, do you take the same actions regarding a person who displays sexist behavior? How about immoral behavior? (For various values of immoral.)
I do not go out of my way to make deep friendships with people whose world view so differs from my own, but you appear to suggest that they should, indeed be treated as lepers–and there are far more racists in our world than there ever were lepers, so that is going to be a difficult action to take.
And, once I have become friendly to an overt racist, I will do nothing to encourage them to express their racism, but at a party of former co-workers, I am more likely to follow the example of Jesus than I am to follow the example of Georgian or Victorian gentry.
This is what you got out of my post, eh? Well, you’re a mod, and clearly a bit over-caffeinated, so I’m just going to back out slowly.
That was what I got from your response to my earlier post. Did you mean something different?
(I’m not sure what my Mod status has to do with anything; I am not in the habit of smacking posters who disagree with me.)
Okay, more seriously, then. Of course I don’t shun people who may be or certainly are racist in my family, workplace, or community groups. Hell, I don’t claim to be free of racism myself. How could I be? I relate to the usual people in the usual ways. Heck, I even like quite a few of them. Love some of them–that’s the extended family dinner.
I simply don’t cultivate close friendships among people who are blithely and unapologetically racist, sexist, or homophobic. This doesn’t strike me as a personal flaw in need of correction.
I agree here. The social statute of limitations for racism, whatever it “should” be, is likely less than 30 years for the overwhelming majority of people. As such, if it were below that amount, I think the onus is on the person to prove he’s changed, but over it, it’s on those who think he hasn’t to prove it.
I think virtually all of us have had opinions that, for lack of a better term, we’re ashamed of now. Here it’s racism, but for others, it could be religious views, political views, or it could be changes in our social circle or activities or just something fairly innocuous like tastes in music, film, or literature. I forget where I heard it, but someone once said that if you can’t look back at who you were a year, or five years, or ten years ago and see those changes in opinion, you haven’t grown as a person.
Frankly, I’m not ashamed of my past opinions that I no longer hold, because they’re signs of how far I’ve come. Admittedly, I never held one like racism, but at the same time, if he has changed his views, then he’s no longer that person. And as far as views go, I think the proper atonement is simply being a better person as a result of that change.
The need for “atonement”, I think, is more dependent upon what actions one’s views compelled one to take and one’s relationship with oneself and others. That is, first, one has to be able to live with oneself, regardless of where society’s bar is, one should start with making sure one feels in balance for the harm those views caused. At that point, it’s a matter of seeing where the bars are for the people one wants to relate to. For some, their own standards may be so high that their personal atonement will suffice for most others. And for some others still, a stigma of a past view can never be undone.
The problem here is for someone in a public facing sort of job. I think most people will probably recognize that he claims to have given it up 30 years ago, hasn’t really shown anything against that since then, and will let it go, but it’s going to be those people who require ridiculous or impossible feats that will be the loud ones and he and the company have to manage that press.
This as well. Again, don’t think I know anyone that is all white-supremacist, but certainly we all know people with varying degrees of sexism, racism, or other prejudices. If I held everyone to the same standards I have now, I’d have few people in my life, and even less if they reciprocated. I think my views have generally evolved for the better (otherwise, why would I have them, right?) but just because I’m where I am in some place doesn’t mean I’m better in all places; in fact, I’m pretty sure I’m not. I’m sure for a tiny bit of whatever random prejudices they have they will bug me, I have some I might not even be completely aware of and they deal with for me. I’m not doing anything to better their lives, my life, or the world by cutting people out like that, especially if we can get along just fine in so many other ways. In fact, I think keeping those sorts of people in my life, I’ve been a positive influence in improving those sorts of views, and some of them have helped evolve my views too.
Hmmmm.
I’m a recovering racists. Just like a recovering alcoholic. Don’t want to be one, shouldn’t be one, but those thoughts always creep into my mind. Born and raised in an environment where it was very common. Didn’t hear my father use any other word but the “N” to describe African Americans. I am friends with blacks, invite them to our house, play golf with them, but losing 30 years of indoctrination isn’t such an easy thing to do.
Good for you for recognizing this and striving to overcome it. It’s a positive and worthy goal.
I think all of us (in the US. I’ll limit it to here) have been indoctrinated, in both overt and subtle ways. Trying to recognize it and combat it isn’t just half the battle, it is the battle.
I also think there’s a pretty big gap between hanging out with someone who was in a band that has songs that literally praise Nazi party members and that did fund-raisers for neo-nazi groups; that is a little bit past ‘I don’t make a scene with that one racist jerk from work’.
Jesus Christ, tom, we’re not talking about Uncle Jack who starts bitching about the Mexicans when he’s had a few at Thanksgiving. We’re talking about actual Nazi skinheads. God help me, celebrity Nazi skinheads. Yeah, if I had a cousin who liked showing off all his swastika tattoos, that fucker would not be invited to Easter anymore.
Pretty sure he’d never get past HR at my current job, either.
Ugh, editing fail on the last post.
I also think there’s a pretty big gap between hanging out with ‘someone who’s kind of racist but mostly doesn’t talk about it’ and ‘someone who was in a band that has songs that literally praise Nazi party members and call for racial cleansing and that did fund-raisers for neo-nazi groups’; that is a little bit past ‘I don’t make a scene with that one racist jerk from work’.