# The Benevolent Racist **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 12, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984 "2018-06-12T18:25:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/21 "2018-06-13T09:00:35Z")
Sending someone to a trade school in today’s world can provide a lifelong skill enabling a better than average income. This may allow them to afford higher education for their children, who in turn will no longer need future help from people like Whitey O’Richpants. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/22 "2018-06-13T11:39:58Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > This statement is worthy of debate in a thread all of its own, I reckon. If you believe something is wrong, are you obliged to try to correct it? I’m not sure my answer to this is absolutely ‘yes’. I am not sure either. I’m all about picking battles and prioritizing my own safety and comfort. Since I am a black and I have a special place in my heart for black people issues, I feel like I have a vested interest in getting the hypothetical philanthropist to see the light. But I’m not gonna front like I’d feel the same motivation to defend another group he’s racist against. I’d like to think I would, but I also know I’m not brave and virtuous all the time. I’ve befriended people through the years who have later shown themselves to be prejudiced in some way. Sometimes I’ve tried to convince them they are wrong and sometimes I’ve just changed the subject. Often I have just let the relationship fade. That works for me as a “solution”, but it’s not really a solution. I guess I prefer to concentrate my fighting energy on battles I can actually win. ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/23 "2018-06-13T12:00:40Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If he’s been fairly open about his beliefs, [list=A][li]He is oblivious or he would have been driven from public life already, and [\*]He has almost certainly heard what you have to say already and is not likely to be convinced, even with charts.[/list]I would keep my mouth shut. [/li] > […] > > Maybe it’s cowardly to say “pick your battles”, but maybe not. > > Regards, > Shodan Cosign. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > My general rule is this: > -When trying to figure out whether someone’s a schmuck, rely on their motives. > -When trying to figure out what should happen, rely on outcomes. > > I think dude’s a schmuck, based on his motives. I don’t try to persuade him of anything, based on your hypothetical’s outcomes. Cosign. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/24 "2018-06-13T12:14:37Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > Philanthropists giving millions simply do not in today’s world espouse such views in public, even in a ‘nicer’ way. People often infer or imply that such figures have such views, but the people themselves essentially never admit it. That’s the difference I’m pointing to v Stormfront. That’s something you’d have to take up with the OP, not the responses to it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/25 "2018-06-13T12:49:40Z")
Give millions to others to set them up for “See? They can’t make it on their own without help from us white men!”? No thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/26 "2018-06-13T13:39:32Z")
Pretty evenly split so far…I need an answer before meeting with Lord O’Richpants! These pie charts are very persuasive but I’m leaning towards no myself. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/27 "2018-06-13T13:39:34Z")
Racist can go fuck themselves, and their money too - but if I can make one less racist by talking to them, I’m happy to do that. And Black America needs college graduates more than it needs plumbers and electricians. Sure, a plumber makes more than a barista - lawyers and surgeons make more than either, and just as important - carry more social prestige. Sure,some college grads end up working at Starbucks - others end up the best US President of my lifetime. More of that, please. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/28 "2018-06-13T13:57:32Z")
People can believe what they want to believe. I believe trying to change Lord O’Richpants’s racist views would be like trying to teach a pig to sing (wasting my time and annoying the racist pig). ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/29 "2018-06-13T14:06:46Z")
> [@wonky](#): > > That’s something you’d have to take up with the OP, not the responses to it. I don’t think so entirely. Some responses have considered the public reaction to the philanthropist’s publicly stated views, but most seem to mainly ignore that aspect. Which again I take to be a common sense conclusion that that part of the hypothetical, that the views were publicly stated, is ridiculous. So people implicitly answer a modified plausible version: _you_ know the person feels this way, so what if anything do you do about this wrong (as you presumably see it) at risk of interfering with the person’s good acts. This happens often I think with ridiculous hypotheticals, people answer a more plausible modified version. If the public knew already then obviously nobody would sign up for the trade school program, not-for-profit type professionals wouldn’t agree to work for the aid agency in Africa, and a general a social/traditional media mob would have descended on the guy long ago and driven him from public life. Arguably as should happen, but anyway a society where somebody could say those things publicly and still run a philanthropy isn’t ours of today. And in a different society where that was possible, the value of his good works might also be different (maybe in that imaginary society nobody else is willing to donate to those causes _without_ racial supremacy views as part of the price). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/30 "2018-06-13T14:13:41Z")
> [@wonky](#): > > The hypothetical doesn’t actually tell us outcomes, does it? At least the way I would define “outcomes.” This is what I was looking at: > [@Delicious](#): > > if he comes to agree with you though, he might cancel his charity work since it shouldn’t be necessary I missed “might.” A simplified version, as I read it: Would you get one person to stop having some shitty beliefs, if the only other effect would be that less money would go toward helping people in poverty escape poverty? With that version, I’d say no. But if there are other effects–as there certainly would be in the real world, and as there are in other folks’ reading of the hypothetical–I’d have to consider those other effects. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/31 "2018-06-13T14:16:59Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Of course. Racism is wrong. It’s not less wrong because this guy is doing some good deeds. If I have a chance to stop racism and I refuse to take it, then I clearly don’t actually think racism is wrong, since our beliefs are proven by our actions. There’s a strange and wonderful movie I saw years ago, [Can Dialectics Break Bricks?](http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/radical-french-philosophy-meets-kung-fu-cinema-in-can-dialectics-break-bricks-1973.html). Worth reading the linked article and maybe watching the movie. All the yammering in the world isn’t gonna put food in anyone’s belly, is the way I see it. I’m under no obligation to prove my beliefs to anyone, and I have competing aims, and stopping someone from believing racist things is only one of those aims. Ameliorating the effects of structural racism is a much bigger aim, and dollars break those bricks way more than dialectics. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/32 "2018-06-13T14:23:47Z")
I don’t want to fight the hypothetical, but I’m not buying the idea that a suddenly enlightened philanthropist would be less likely to help black people than a racist one. If his eyes have been opened through education (particularly, the kind of education provided by me), then that would mean he’d understand the racist root causes of present-day socioeconomic disparities. This understanding should make him _more_ likely to want to help disadvantage black youth, not less. I can’t conceive of a scenario in which he’d walk away thinking such charity was pointless. That aside, if I believed the guy was open enough to have his mind changed by a black woman, then I would try to change it. But that “if” is important. In the real world, it is laughably implausible that he would be sufficiently open-minded for me to devote my limited free time to. Experiences on this board show that those who declare certain opinions about racial groups tend to hold those opinions very strongly. If they were amenable to alternative viewpoints, discussions with these posters wouldn’t turn into million-page threads. So unless I’m either being paid by the hour to talk to this guy and reason him out of his position, I can’t see myself voluntarily giving up my time unless I absolutely knew I’d be effective. Which is an impossibility in the real world. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/33 "2018-06-13T14:29:42Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Ameliorating the effects of structural racism is a much bigger aim, and dollars break those bricks way more than dialectics. I think his money with his rhetoric is reinforcing structural racism. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/34 "2018-06-13T14:31:06Z")
> [@wonky](#): > > I think his money with his rhetoric is reinforcing structural racism. I missed the part of the hypothetical wherein he said this shit in public. Okay, that changes my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/35 "2018-06-13T14:44:20Z")
For those having trouble with the hypothetical, you can assume Lord O’Richpants is a very charming old man, he never says anything hateful about black people but very clearly thinks they’re inferior to White people, it’s not their fault and he sees it like a parental duty to see they reach their limited potential. When asked about helping generally poor people, he holds the belief that they should be able to look after themselves as long as they’re not held back by some disability i.e. “Giving charity to healthy white people would be like giving wheelchairs to a track team, unnecessary and insulting” He’ll probably get a bunch of abuse but he just laughs it off and doesn’t read the internets where most of the complaining happens. The presentation you have is really persuasive, the charts are in colour and 3D and by the finale of the puppet show, there won’t be a dry eye in the house. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/36 "2018-06-13T14:59:04Z")
> [@Delicious](#): > > You have a private meeting with Whitey tomorrow _Why_ do I have a private meeting with the asshole? Yes, I guess I’m fighting the hypothetical, but I do not meet with assholes, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/37 "2018-06-13T15:05:15Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > _Why_ do I have a private meeting with the asshole? Yes, I guess I’m fighting the hypothetical, but I do not meet with assholes, sorry. You got an invitation to tea meant for someone else but he doesn’t want to seem rude by cancelling. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/38 "2018-06-13T15:14:21Z")
> [@Delicious](#): > > he never says anything hateful about black people but very clearly thinks they’re inferior to White people Either you are fine contradicting yourself in the same sentence, or your definition of “hateful” means that the term is irrelevant to my thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/39 "2018-06-13T15:33:57Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Either you are fine contradicting yourself in the same sentence, or your definition of “hateful” means that the term is irrelevant to my thinking. Maybe I’m not up to date with the terminology. He neither seeks nor promotes harm or ill fortune to black people but considers them mentally limited and has often said so in public. So clearly racist but not in a lynchy way. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984/40 "2018-06-13T15:36:13Z")
> [@wonky](#): > > He says that black people are intellectually inferior. In practice, he says that. He is admitting racism, and he’s going to make racism seem a-ok to some people. That is the practice that he’s engaging in. Motives are more important than results? I’m sure the people in an impoverished 3rd world nation that need clean water don’t care that much. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-benevolent-racist/815984.md?page=3)