RE: So, tell me again what your mirror tells you after voting for that man
November 12, 2016 at 5:07 pm
(This post was last modified: November 12, 2016 at 5:09 pm by Regina.)
I don't know why it has to be an either/or. In fact I think both are as bad as eachother.
There's racist shits in America, what news? We're talking about AmeriKKKa here, I don't know why people are acting like racism just appeared like Trump invented it. Trump is a symptom of a much bigger issue that we all have a responsibility to address.
At the same time I'm not going to be ashamed of being anything. I'm an individual and the only person I represent is myself. I can be and am opposed to racism and I acknowledge that white privilege is a thing. Simultaneously I don't not hate myself as a white person, or feel guilt over something I'm not personally responsible for. Yes you can think both at once and it's not a conflict of identity.
The problem is this subject gets polarised into two extreme camps, you are either "everything is racist and down to racism" or you are "nothing is racist, it doesn't exist". No, it lies somewhere in the middle. It wasn't just far-right "racists" voting for Trump, a lot of desperate people fell for his shit.
There's more nuance to this discussion than that, and if you can't talk about this subject with that nuance then the "everything is racist" mantra becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the word "racist" loses all legitimate meaning. That empowers people who don't believe it exists (as well as convincing more people that it doesn't) because it becomes a "boy who called wolf" situation.
There's racist shits in America, what news? We're talking about AmeriKKKa here, I don't know why people are acting like racism just appeared like Trump invented it. Trump is a symptom of a much bigger issue that we all have a responsibility to address.
At the same time I'm not going to be ashamed of being anything. I'm an individual and the only person I represent is myself. I can be and am opposed to racism and I acknowledge that white privilege is a thing. Simultaneously I don't not hate myself as a white person, or feel guilt over something I'm not personally responsible for. Yes you can think both at once and it's not a conflict of identity.
The problem is this subject gets polarised into two extreme camps, you are either "everything is racist and down to racism" or you are "nothing is racist, it doesn't exist". No, it lies somewhere in the middle. It wasn't just far-right "racists" voting for Trump, a lot of desperate people fell for his shit.
There's more nuance to this discussion than that, and if you can't talk about this subject with that nuance then the "everything is racist" mantra becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the word "racist" loses all legitimate meaning. That empowers people who don't believe it exists (as well as convincing more people that it doesn't) because it becomes a "boy who called wolf" situation.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
