Of course, but not really relevant IMO. Everyone’s right to have opinions, to be free to think and speak, is the same.
I did read what you wrote; I just disagree with you. Because some racists intend to create a climate of fear, you wish to create a climate of fear for anyone you judge racist in response? Launching actual attacks on the basis of expressions of opinions? No. If you act on that, you are the most immediate threat to decent society.
Well, the merchandise scenario should be clear; that’s the business itself. I would definitely not give that place my money, and I would tell them why not–as an individual, face to face, which I think tends to be more impressive than a petition signature.
Avoiding a business simply because you have reason to dislike one employee strikes me as arbitrary and ineffective at best–all kinds of businesses that you give your money to employ all kinds of people. Some of them must be worse than this dude.
Would you knowingly hire an anti-racist vigilante?
I’ll live with being a threat to what you view as decent society. And yes, I want that swastika wearing skinhead fuck to feel at least as much, if not more fear than that which he instills in the Pakistani grandmother on the same street who has become a shut in because of his posturing.
Yes. I’ve known more than a few, and they were good people.
Skrewdriver was a racist British band much loved by brain addled skins. They got rather upset when they found their concerts were often cancelled after bad bad vigilantes informed the venue of who the act actually was (they often booked under pseudonyms).
I think boycotting the restaurant is not correct. The fact of the matter is, even if the employer disagrees with the racist and wanted to fire him, they could not. Firing him for his beliefs would not be justified (and illegal). Coercing the employer to take an unlawful action is kind of shitty.
They could bar him from displaying racist material in their parking lot though, and then fire him if he doesn’t comply, but that’s about it.
So where exactly does my obligation to patronize a specific business end? I mean, as a good American. I mean, the last I checked, organizing a boycott didn’t mean forcing people to participate as some kind of mandatory thing, so all of these people presumably feel that they would rather not buy lunch from a place that employs a bigot, but apparently as decent Americans they are obligated to buy lunch there anyway? Am I missing some nuance here?
Edit: I can’t speak for the people involved but personally I would be happy with an outcome that led to the employee removing the racist material from his vehicle.
I feel the opposite way. To me, open racism is worse than secret racism.
I don’t want to slide down the slippery slope from a bumper sticker to a lynching tree, but it wasn’t all that long ago when a major facet of racism was its blatant openness. A bunch of bigots could drag a black man into the middle of the town square and torture him to death with a hundred people watching. The message was “It’s not just a handful of us killing you in secret that you have to worry about. You better remember that the majority of the people in this town will back us up and let us kill you if we decide to. You have no friends here.”
The civil rights movement may not have stopped all racism. But at least it drove it underground. Racists now have to hide in fear from what the rest of us think. They have to worry about people finding out they’re racist. And I don’t want them to lose that fear. I don’t want them thinking they can call somebody a nigger in public and get away with it.
Wow, when you put it that way, it’s so obvious. I can clearly see now that suppressing racism in society is exactly the same as suppressing the rights of minorities in society!
OK, so you haven’t abandoned your “racists are the new black” argument. So what about the fact that the bad old guys in the bad old days were saying the exact same things that this guy’s bumper sticker was saying, and that it’s only been a few decades since those bad old days?
When did it stop being a bad idea to point out and be hostile to racists, and start being actual oppression? 1981 was the last lynching, if that helps.
When racists start getting publicly lynched, and have their voting rights removed, and cannot eat in the same restaurants as non-racists, then maybe this will make sense. Until then, your statement is completely stupid.
I just don’t think open racism is comparable to any of the other beliefs that have been mentioned here. Religion, sexual orientation, race, none of these things are necessarily harmful or hateful. Open racism is. There are beliefs that are inherently bad, and when shoved out into the open they become worse because they reinforce among those who believe them that what they believe is ok.
Say you have kids, are you really ok with your neighbor hosting his NAMBLA meeting next door? Would you hire somebody with a “Pedophile’s Rights!” sticker on the back of his truck? I sure as hell wouldn’t. Certain things are inherently harmful, the satisfaction of their wants is completely reliant on causing harm to others. There is no upside to racism. There is no upside to pedophilia. There is no upside to gay bashing. There are things that can only cause harm and I see no problem with society working to (peacefully!) weed them out.
Any employee attempting to park a vehicle on my property with such a sticker would be fired on the spot. If I were running a restaurant I’d probably refuse service to even a customer who had such. Sorry you can take your ignorance somewhere else, you certainly aren’t going to advertise it on my property.
Sorry I just can’t feel any empathy for a racist being ‘unfairly’ discriminated against. It is fair if they don’t want to be treated like a second class citizen they probably shouldn’t be expressing views that others are second class citizens.
Terrorizing people because of their race or religion is wrong. But I’m okay with terrorizing the terrorists. They should be scared to commit any crimes. I’ll concede that hanging somebody over a racist bumper sticker is going too far. Beating somebody up over a bumper sticker is probably wrong. But boycotting a business over it? That’s fair - my message is I don’t like their message. Nobody said we have to tolerate intolerance.
You guys don’t get it do you. Key to your points is that your point of view is RIGHT and others is WRONG.
Well, thats fucking great when you are the majority and aren’t to worried about how you go about maintaing that control.
I’d rather worry about having a social methodology in which a minority position can rise to the top using the political/legal system and appeals to reason/logic rather than brute force.
Is tell the guy he’s a cunt brute force? Nope. Is giving his employer hell for it and making it cost him money? Maybe. Is getting the business closed and the guy kicked out of his apartment and his beloved pickup truck burned? Probably.
So, the question IMO becomes how much IRE should this guy get for having an unpopular opinion?
I’d imagine the people who were fighting for civils rights would have been rather happier all around if all they had to worry about was some dirty looks, contentious elections, and not getting invited to backyard BBQ’s rather than lynchings, guns, dogs, buring houses, burning churches and what not.
If you didnt like the tactics as an underdog you’er a damn hypocrite if you now like them as the top dog.
Now, I’m not saying racist bumper sticker man is getting the same treatment as a civil rights fighter back in the day. I’m not even saying his POV is worth a shit. But, again, at some point atttempts to squelch his POV can become as “wrong” and problematic as things done in the past.
villa, I don’t appreciate you deliberately misusing the word “vigilante” here to play down the position you took up. Informing a music venue about the identity of Skrewdriver is not any kind of vigilantism, as I suspect you know; that’s mild activism. When I used the word, I was talking about physically assaulting people for their beliefs and words; that’s what I understand you to have endorsed.
I think you misread me a bit, or I didn’t put it well. I’m not saying I want people to feel they can call somebody a nigger in public and get away with it; I’m saying that if they’re inclined to call somebody a nigger at all, I’d rather it be in public where they will be challenged. Because the public challenge, the discussion it may create, is more likely to change them. The achievements of the civil rights movement were based on making a public issue of it.
The problem with this, of course, is that people disagree about what beliefs meet this standard. Is a belief in communism “inherently bad”? Christian fundamentalism? Radical environmentalism? Legalized prostitution? Sharia? Evolution?
I’m ready to put my views in the public forum, and I damn sure don’t want anyone–government or vigilante–trying to enforce (which means, backing by violence) their standards on me about what viewpoints are permissible.
If I see somebody getting the shit kicked out of him in the parking lot, I’m coming to his aid. The fact that some of you are doing it because he’s got a racist bumper sticker isn’t going to range me on your side.
So how bad should I feel about having slugged that guy back in college? I mean all he and his group of friends did was stop me and express their free speech to a nerdy short Jewish looking kid.
My reading of the situation in your first comment was that you were being actively threatened and defended yourself accordingly, not that you were “teaching the scum what it is like to live in fear.” So unless I misunderstood, you’re fine.