I am using race as a social construct. I'm aware that biologically there's no evidence for "races", but I'm warning people beforehand to avoid comments like "race doesn't exist". When I talk about race, I mean physical and cultural features we link to specific groups of people
I am curious, what drives some people to be racist against their own race? This isn't as rare as I thought. My girlfriend has gipsy ancestry, which basically means she looks white with slight Indian-like traits. She hates her ancestry, she really does, she is racist against gipsy people and denies that she has such ancestry. It's not rare for her to suggest a stereotype such as "Gypsies live on welfare and are criminals" is true. I don't really make a big deal about this, as people have the right to be racist against anyone and it doesn't impact me that she thinks half of her biological family (she's adopted) are a bunch of low class morons.
But it bothers me somehow - If I found out I had ancestry from 'x' ethnic group, I wouldn't care much, but I wouldn't simply say that group sucks because I would automatically self-label myself due to me being a part of that group.
Another example - A colleague in university is black, and he once said "Whenever I see a black man at night, I cross the street right away".
Why do people do this?
I am curious, what drives some people to be racist against their own race? This isn't as rare as I thought. My girlfriend has gipsy ancestry, which basically means she looks white with slight Indian-like traits. She hates her ancestry, she really does, she is racist against gipsy people and denies that she has such ancestry. It's not rare for her to suggest a stereotype such as "Gypsies live on welfare and are criminals" is true. I don't really make a big deal about this, as people have the right to be racist against anyone and it doesn't impact me that she thinks half of her biological family (she's adopted) are a bunch of low class morons.
But it bothers me somehow - If I found out I had ancestry from 'x' ethnic group, I wouldn't care much, but I wouldn't simply say that group sucks because I would automatically self-label myself due to me being a part of that group.
Another example - A colleague in university is black, and he once said "Whenever I see a black man at night, I cross the street right away".
Why do people do this?
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
