…that they can’t even talk to people who approve of it.
So I have this FB friend. Always been fairly right wing, sometimes to a worrying degree. I’ve forgiven him a lot of MRA crap in the past because he has a hard life as a single dad bringing up two kids, one of them with serious depression/school bullying stuff to deal with, and I’ve heard sufficient about his own personal messy divorce/separation to at least see where that was coming from. Ethnically - not ‘Black’ = not African or Indigenous. Certainly Jim Crow would have kicked him off the white lunch counter in a hot second though.
Now we’re all in iso and haven’t had church for three months (he’s a church friend initially), dude’s completely gone off the rails on FB. Constantly posting All Lives Matter stuff, frequently posting gotchas about Muslim vs Christian atrocities in the Global South with “so why don’t THESE lives matter, huh?” messages, calling anyone who supports BLM a ‘Cultural Marxist’ and so on.
A (white) mutual friend gently engaged him at one point with the ‘you know Black Lives matter doesn’t mean other lives don’t matter’ argument - he got blocked and defriended instantly. Then we got a message in the Church Families group - ‘youre all a bunch of Cultural Marxists, I’m outa here, bye’. And this was essentially the group for iso baking tips and kids home science projects - there had been nothing political on it at all (certainly some people in the group would post BLM-approving stuff on their own timelines, admittedly). At that point I did send him a VERY non-confrontational message - ‘this is a rough time for everyone, sorry to hear you feel like you can’t stay with the group, blah blah’. I never got any response but - didn’t get blocked and defriended so, win??
I don’t want this guy to get radicalised. Well, even more radicalised. For the sake of his sons, if nothing else. I suspect the anti-BLM thing was sparked off because he’s very anti-Muslims (African=Muslim about 80% of the time in inner north Melbourne) so he’s looking for an anti-Muslim anti-feminist bubble - that’s not a healthy environment for two growing young men.
This is mostly a vent, because I suspect the answer is ‘nothing’ - at least till meeting people face to face is a thing again. But has anyone had similar experiences? What did you do?
I used to be kids leader in the church group his younger son was in. Now my husband’s kids leader in the group Son aged into last year. Everyone has always been very concerned for Son - he was bullied a lot at school, he’s got serious depression, very very hard to engage. Quite smart on the (rare) occasions you can get a comment out of him. Son is in counselling - he’s being looked after I think, but it’s a slow slow slog. FBFriend has always seemed to be a very loving dad to his kids, and we’ve had a lot of conversations, back in the day, about how Son is going, and what sorts of things might help him. Also I know life is legitimately hard for FBFriend, partly due to being a permanent resident, not a citizen, which shuts him off from various sources of government financial help, and he’s had a grindingly long family court battle to be allowed to take his sons out of the country to visit family, before all the elderly family members die off. So I understand where a lot of this internal anger is coming from, even where I think the expression is terribly destructive
I think all you can say (if you say anything) is something like “I’m so sorry you’re hurting so much. You have a lot to be angry about,” and basically validate his FEELINGS without validating or even addressing the content of his speech/thoughts. The guy has a ton on his plate and while that doesn’t excuse his lashing out, it does explain some of it. No need to get in the crossfire or even engage, but you can convey love without making yourself a target.
Since this is a church group, beaucoup of prayers are in order.
It sounds to me that he sees you not so much as a friend but as an audience for his hateful rhetoric. He probably doesn’t get a lot of positive feedback from your circle of church friends. But from those he doesn’t get criticism, he might be considering that as tacit agreement. Calling people “Cultural Marxists” was a calculated attempt at seeing who his allies were and who he could make an enemy. Frankly, he sounds like he is seeking more of the latter than the former to support his decent into vile bigotry; he must be right if people are reacting negatively in predictable ways.
That said, you’re a better person than I if you can put up with this kind of bigotry and ignorance while keeping a larger perspective of what is in the interest of his kids.
You know, I think that helps clarify some things in my mind about the current arms-length internet-socialising. On Facebook, we’ve ALL stopped being people to him - now everyone’s just a faceless audience for views. In face-to-face conversation, a lot of that toxicity goes away because you can’t help but see the person in front of you as a person (well, some people can, but they’re REALLY unreachable)
That’s why I say reach out to him heart-to-heart not head-to-head. You can understand and relate to the quality of his bitterness even as you despise the content of it. But if you do reach out, it has to be with no expectations of anything from him.
Could some of the men from your church meet with this man in person? (Even with Shelter in Place restrictions, there are ways to do it. Meet outdoors, wear masks, keep your distance.) He is obviously struggling and venting. You don’t mention if he is working, or what kind of work he does. But it sounds like he is isolated, which is not good at all for his mental state. Regular check-ins from some men he knows from church - i.e., connecting with other humans - might be a step in a constructive direction. The talk doesn’t have to be about anything beyond, “How are you doing?” They should probably steer the conversation away from BLM, Islam, etc. He’s fixating on that now, but that’s not his problem. He’s angry and disappointed in his life, and he’s looking for other people to blame. That’s never going to bring him satisfaction. If he’s Christian, then he needs to take his pain to God. Some men that he respects need to guide him in that direction.
PS: I mentioned his helpers need to be men, because he’s already expressed anti-feminist and MRA attitudes. So he won’t listen to women most likely.
It’s a long hard road back to something resembling reason, and you all are probably not going to get him there.
“Black Lives Matter/trans rights/etc is cultural Marxism!” is an idiotic conspiracy theory that has been gobbled up eagerly by those who want someone to hate, and is parroted by people like your friend who have no idea what the phrase even means, but believe it is a show-stopper for any debate.
You might as well be asking “how can I convince my friend that 9/11 wasn’t perpetrated by the US government?” This person has grabbed onto a made-up story in order to cope with reality. There’s no evidence or argument that’s going to back him out of the world he feels comfortable in.
I’m guessing this is another person who latched on to “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement” and believe it’s Marxist while ignoring the rest of that statement: “by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
If I’m right, try pointing out that this practice was witnessed in African villages 40 years before Marx was even born.
I find that people in real life can have radically different personalities than what they project on Facebook. I quit Facebook in 2018 because I got tired of arguing with my crazy uncle, who is actually reasonable and sane and stand-up in real life. People say all kinds of crazy shit that they wouldn’t say standing in front of people. For some, Facebook is a megaphone and a stage to get some attention, particularly for people who are depressed and feeling powerless and voiceless. Also, the act of “un-friending” gives people a sense of satisfaction, a sense of power that they feel by “punishing” someone.
Facebook can be good in some ways, but more often than not, I find that it brings out the worst in too many people. It brings out narcissism. It allows people to share fake news. It amplifies tribalism, sexism, and racism. It’s just not really what I thought or hoped it would be, which is why I made a choice to scrap it.
You might be able to discuss things with him if you eliminate any of the labels and slogans and just discuss core issues.
For example:
Discussing how possibly you (I don’t know your skin color) or your black friends get pulled over frequently even when not breaking any law, and wouldn’t it be a good thing to find a way to eliminate that type of thing?
Facebook is the worst. I’m constantly hearing crap from people/friends/family members that came from facebook, whether on the left or on the right this is my response:
Almost everything you and anyone else has repeated that came from facebook has turned out to be wrong or misleading. I’m going to go investigate this one on scientific/academic and/or relatively unbiased sources and then I will let you know what I think.
Although 90% of the time it’s crap, once in a while there is truth. I just had an example from facebook this morning from my conservative wife about 2 different points that I was surprised to hear and thought it might be right-wing spin. It turned out both were basically accurate although one sounded worse than the underlying principle.
There’s so much more about Facebook that sucks than fake news. I’ve gotten into an argument with a family member over a photograph that I was in and they weren’t.
“Oh I guess I mean nothing to you all! I see where I stand now.”
Jesus effing Christ, I didn’t post the fucking photo and forgot that it existed - go bitch to that person if you’re pissed off about it.
My biggest complaint about Facebook is that it distorts reality. People create a persona and a ‘life’ that they want others to see. I know that many people use it and enjoy it, and I’m not saying that everyone should quit. But see it for what it is. For me, it was just too much drama and I found that most of my “friends” were old acquaintances I hadn’t seen in years and probably wouldn’t ever again anytime seen. I figure there are ways to get in touch with people if I (or others) really want to.
I’ve been intermittently scanning his posts for things that I can actually agree with, and popping in every so often to do so. Like “yes, I think it’s unlikely that covid actually started over a year ago in Spain” in response to a dissing of that conspiracy theory (if anyone’s going to diss a conspiracy theory, I’m right there with them!)
Well, you’ve prompted me to just fire off a message to our minister to say hey, anything going on in that direction? I know there are mens’ Zoom chats happening, except obviously I don’t go to them myself
Someone actually shared an article recently with me about Cultural Marxism - on Facebook, even! - This one. A long read, but actually quite a good one. Article from the “rightish but non-insane” political point of view, as far as I can judge. So I’ve upgraded my views on Cultural Marxism from “not even a thing” to “hmmm, apparently a thing … not really relevant to contemporary political debate though”
I must say, in general my own Facebook ecosystem is remarkably sane. Normally the worst I have to deal with is the occasional antivaxxer. At the moment, fighting a couple of “there’ve been more suicides than COVID deaths in Aus therefore openup!!!” brushfires (built on totally madeup statistics, natch), but nothing too severe