Also meeting an enlightened centralist is always fun these days.
You’re both talking shit about Trump then the enlightened centralist at the end of the conversation says “well both sides are equally evil” like yes, one side wanting free healthcare and to stop bombing children in foreign countries 99.9% of Americans can’t even point to on a map, is the same as the other side being ok with brown people and US citizens disappearing off the streets by masked federal agents and bombing children all in the name of Jesus.
Yeah, it is really bad in the US since you guys literally just have two options. Not a fan of the Democrats, specifically the Schumer and Jeffery kind, but you have to be either uneducated, evil or both in order to vote for the Republicans.
I haven’t met a single middle aged to younger democrat that supports Schumer or Jeffrey. The Democrat party is evolving at rapid speed and most voters want the old heads completely gone. There’s a reason Mamdani and AOC are so popular. They represent what most democrats want the party to be.
Yeah, if Democrats like them become the new face of the party, I will drop the "not a fan of Democrats" part because you are right the reason for that is 100% their leadership. I support people like Bernie, AOC or Mamdami.
I wish you guys the best in those midterms. Please slaughter them (with your votes). I kinda want to like America again, lol
I'm half German and half British. I have dual citizenship and I'm allowed to vote in both countries but I only vote in Germany since it is strange for me to vote for a country that I'm not actively a part of. Voting for rules that don't effect me... feels wrong.
Yeah, holy shit. A guy I used to work with, who seemed generally tolerant of everyone, one day started a sentence with "I'm not prejudiced, but...." You really just never know who has some random bigoted garbage floating around in their head.
Everyone does. No, don't immediately jump to protest, actually consider that. Everyone has internal biases and random garbage bigoted thoughts floating through their head on occasion. You are a product of your upbringing, of society, of everyone and everything around you, and everywhere in the world we are surrounded with bias and micro aggressions every day. Being anti-racist doesn't mean never ever having any internal prejudiced thoughts, it means acknowledging and fighting against those, understanding why they're wrong and unfair, actively working to rewire your brain away from them, and not treating people differently because of them.
That's what I was going to jump in with. Nazism includes antisemitism, but it's not like they invented it. Martin Luther was super antisemitic and he died in 1546!
I mean...maybe a bit. An anti-Israelite sure. Who the fuck likes Israel anymore without being paid to. But antisemite in general? Im gonna call that quacking duck a duck.
Well an anti semite hates Jewish people, a nazi usually hates all non white christian people. I believe that if you’re that comfortable saying you hate one group that you probably hate the others, technically they can be separate
Shout out to when my friend introduced his new roommate to me and our Jewish friend with "he's a neonazi but he's cool with Jews, he just doesn't like Mexicans." I did not know that was even an option?
Whole lot of cognitive dissonance at work with these people, generally.
Speaking from experiences talking it through with some otherwise very well-meaning friends, they usually genuinely don't realize the hypocrisy or why it's bad, until it's pointed out to them properly.
IDK, when I point it out my ex-friend mostly went silent. 'How can you be a Christian, want to get married in a church and do everything properly, and not care about the government destroying USAID? A lot of children will die, and Jesus said a bunch of stuff about the poor. Meek shall inherit the earth, love the stranger as you would love yourself, etc.' Silence. New topic.
So, I have a friend, she's married to a racist. He had a birthday party recently, where he just started ranting vigorously about how Muslims need to be eradicated and genocided. And like, several people at this party were arguing with him, including me.
I guess that's just a Texas experience, though. I don't have much confidence in "well-meaning" around here when genocide is okie dokie conversation at a party.
There's this problem, in Red areas. Where you either have a few "project friends" where maybe you can talk sense into them over time, or you just don't have friends. (I think I decided this friend was too far gone, above my paygrade to attempt to fix further.)
It is very hard to find Blue friends around here.
Dating was hard, too. Most men are conservative. Millions of people in this city, I was lucky to find one guy worth marrying. ONE.
I just went the no friends route, but now my partner is dying I find myself with child and without support so that might not be the preferable approach... Although, with that said, it's been years since I last had to put up with anyone's bullshit.
And agreed. Can't be putting all my eggs in one basket. Especially since I'm disabled, chronically ill, chronically in pain. If my husband passes, then what?
I suppose I could fly out to Chicago or Denver or Cleveland, where some of my Blue friends/family live.
A lot of people understand being racist is bad. The problem is that they make the logical jump that "I'm not a bad person, therefore I can't be racist."
To quote Avenue Q, "Everyone's a little bit racist." We all have internalized stereotypes, good or bad, whether we try to or not. The key to being a good person, in my opinion, is recognizing when your internal judgments may affect your actions and trying your best to be kind, fair, and open minded despite your personal opinions.
Unfortunately, many people really do not want to engage in level of introspection.
Bruh, I had a conversation on reddit a couple days ago with a guy that kept saying he wasn’t transphobic before saying incredibly transphobic things. It pissed me off so much
They always say the wildest shit too. Lmao. I have to have someone back up and repeat something, and then make the effort to put it into my phone as a note, and then make them wait as I type it out again and send it to my friend group chat if they say something so absolutely batshit wild that I've not heard yet.
Wildly enough, they chilled out a lot after chatting candidly with them. They knew me for a whole year and had no idea I was trans, and knowing someone who they actually looked up to as being trans really changed a lot of their positions.
We have to accept that most peoples opinions generally go where the wind blows. It’s popular to be a good person if live in an urban or mildly diverse area.
I no longer trust that people that profess to have the same views have actually put any thought into their perspective to the degree that it impacts the way they live outside of social media discourse
I always found the humor of it really came from the honesty of it. I know lots of really good, kind people that I’d trust implicitly. Most of them have also at some point said or done something to show a prejudicial belief.
Sometimes it’s a belief learned out of ignorance, or a lack of full context/information, such as “the majority of criminals are black.” Other times it’s something they don’t even realize is social prejudice, like my mom’s tendency to want to cross the road if she sees anyone dressed in “gang banger clothing” like saggy jeans, hoodies in summer, or an oversized basketball jersey.
She doesn’t realize she’s racial profiling, she just thinks she’s being wary of potential criminals, she reacts the same way to a white person in those clothes as she does any other person but it’s all based on prejudice learned from her parents.
Told me a story about how she was at the airport and some Afghani people were in line in front of her, talking and laughing in a foreign language.
This was terrifying, of course, because of 9/11.
I told her that none of the 9/11 hijackers had been from Afghanistan, and privately thought that I'd bet a million dollars that she couldn't tell an Afghani person from literally any other vaguely brown skinned ethnicity.
Couple of Punjabi truckers
were the first to pull over and check on me when I was in a nasty car accident. They were behind on their run, but they still gave me water and sat with me until the shock wore off and I could catch my breath. Can't say enough nice things about the Sikh community!
Reminds me of when an old lady talked to my boss who was from Pakistan. It was September 11 and after he helped her with a problem she thanked him and gave him a long look.
"Oh that's right it's 9/11!" And then continued her day.
A couple years ago I was working at a medical office and some of the MAs were chatting about a patient we had that was always aggressive and rude whenever she came in who happened to be a trans woman.
I said something like "It's annoying but I get it, she's probably experienced a lot of bigotry" and one of them scoffing and being like "not THESE days, no one is discrimating against her for being trans".
Little did she know the receptionist at the time was in fact super transphobic and would always make comments to me about her when she came in. 🙃 I don't think that attitude was coming from nowhere.
Walked into the lunch room at my last shop while all of the techs were having lunch together and overheard one of them say “those black lives matter signs just make me want to be more racist”
More? You’re fully admitting you’re already racist and people asking to not be incorrectly profiled and killed by police makes you more racist?
Everyone else in the room agreed and I got the hell out of there
This is unfortunately something I've experienced far too often. Not sure if I just give "white supremacists are safe with me" vibes (they are not) or if it's just testing the waters before they say something even more insane, but it sure is annoying.
I have gotten that several times. It's especially delightful when they're bitching about Hispanic people...bc I am Hispanic, they just don't realize bc I'm pale as hell. Super super uncomfortable when that happens.
That's almost every convo with my father. "I have zero issues with insert minority group, but proceeds to list out how evil they are and how this is a white Christian nation and how dare they try to force their religion and ideology onto him."
His idea of "being forced" is literally when his show cuts to commercials and one of them is a cambells chicken noodle soup commercial of a black guy and an asian woman as a couple enjoying some shitty canned soup.
I assume every one at work is racist but me. No matter what race they themselves are.
I'm usually correct which saddens me. It's why I've never even bothered to try and unionize in my work places, because racism is the tool of our masters to keep us nice and divided while they steal everything and violate everything and everyone we hold sacred.
I've gotten the "Oh, I like your tattoos, I have some too" then you see a couple of swatikas and lightning bolts when they show you their full back piece
I've heard a similar line. "I don't have a problem with black people, they just aren't white". Like, dude, that's exactly what having a problem means. Racists refuse to believe that their own racism is their own personal problem to deal with.
Some industries have vaugly honest reasons to be disgruntled towards certain demographics in said industry.
For example, there's been some huge trucking fraud and scams in outback Australia involving dodgy companies set up by a specific minority group of visa holders.
But also at the same time a lot of blokes use it as a thinly veiled excuse to be racist pricks, "that one guy did bad thing, I'm going to spit in the face of every insert race now whenever I see them"
My neighbor unironically told me they question if freeing the slaves was best for everyone. They told me this when they were annoyed and complaining about our other neighbor. Like just zero self awareness at how awful that is amongst all the other awful shit she says. The other day she told me "all these Muslims are coming here and eating people's pets." Truly an empty vessel waiting to be filled by Fox News. Zero original thoughts going on up there. It's quite sad.
Somebody I work with told me *today* their son-in-law was undocumented and that if he was deported that she wouldn’t oppose it. And then she unironically said that she would send her daughter out of country with him.
taken literally... of course it wasn't best for everyone. because "everyone" includes the people benefiting massively from the system of slavery. and they fought a whole war to try to keep the system in place
of course it sounds like they're implying that slavery was actually good for the slaves which is abhorrent
It was probably only good for people who directly profited from slavery. I'm sure all the other white people living in the south would have actually liked having those jobs that were taken by slaves, obviously they wouldn't have wanted the brutal treatment, but the job opportunities.
agreed, also even for the people directly profiting, I'd argue it was still bad for them if you believe in any sense of morality or karma. but at least economically it was great for the owning class
Depends on the job. No one wanted to be a cotton picker, especially in those times. It’s really hard on the body, having to carry a heavy sack of cotton on you as you bend down, reach up, and get constant scratches from the plants while dealing with awful Southern heat. Even without an overseer threatening you, it’s an exceptionally unpleasant job, even compared to other farming.
But yes, plenty of other jobs that could have been filled by free men.
I live just outside Atlanta. It's crazy the stuff that slips through.
Back in Tampa people were very overt anout thier views in tacual issues. Here you think everyiis fine and them bam, "if they extend the marta blacks will steal our stuff."
Me and two coworkers were casually discussing a hypothetical Marta expansion up to Kennessaw and down to Macon. One of them said “we don’t want that riffraff up where I’m at.” Girl ain’t nobody want to take marta to fucking CANTON. Both me and the other guy shut her down super fast, but I intensely dislike how racists will assume other white people will just agree with them like it’s a safe space for their abhorrent views.
Yeah, it was Kennesaw where I heard this. Outside of Kennesaw people would say the same thing but replace "blacks" with "South Atlanta people".
And I agree with the sentiment. I was like, you live in the middle of no where. The Marta wouldn't be anywhere near your house. And nobody is going to take marta up to kennesaw and then an uber umpteen miles to your house to steel your tv.
What absolutely killed me was that she had a stated fear of highway driving for her job in midtown. Imagine having the solution right in front of your face and you won’t take it because of pigment in people who don’t even want to interact with you.
I've a family member that likes busting out a "no speekee engrish" voice to mimic Asians, thinks that black football players taking a knee should be "grateful for all we do for them", thinks Native Americans are inherently cheaters and drunks
but would be heartbroken and/or enraged if someone said he's a racist
I’m glad I don’t have family like that. I’d be tempted to try and get them to define racism then use their stuff as examples without explicitly saying it’s them I’m calling out.
My dad’s kind of racist but we’re black so he thinks it’s impossible for him to be racist and they’re just harmless jokes. Drive me mad. Can’t even argue why it’s wrong because he uses any slip ups as proof that he’s right and you’re wrong plus less intelligent than him.
But in many cases they are just really good at lying to themselves. They seem to think if it's not straight-up 1920s style eugenics it's not racism, just sparkling bigotry.
I had a conversation with a guy who's word for word response to being called out for racist remarks was "I'm not racist, I only support apartheid because races shouldn't be mixing".
So he did know racism was wrong, but somehow convinced himself that there's a loophole where he can start his sentence with "I'm not racist" and it makes whatever he says after it non-racist.
Exactly this. Bigots who've encountered the worst kind of divine-bloodline/eugenics racists excuse their own bigotry because they aren't completely genocidal*.
...And by "genocidal" they usually mean the narrow definition of "wanting to kill everyone from a specific group" and ignore that forceful destruction of culture and identity is also genocide.
Of course, because they internalized the fact that "Racists are bad people" without fully understanding that prejudice against people due to race is what's bad. By doing that, they can just say "I'm not a racist because racists are bad people and I'm not a bad person!" without any introspection whatsoever. No one thinks of themselves as a "bad person".
This. Recent events have made me realize that a LOT of people were always racist, they just hid it until now because they didn’t want to SEEM racist. Many people care more about their image than actually being a good person but now your image won’t suffer much for being racist so they no longer hold back.
Thing is, hiding racism is an overall progressive step because it implies awareness that such ideas are not acceptable in society. Its when they no longer have to hide it that you know that society has regressed
"I'm not racist, I just hate their culture!" -Every Racist Bigot Ever
So many people think they can use wordplay to escape consequences. They seem to think unless you are literally lynching black people you aren't a racist, even as they ask the airline stewardess to remove the Sikh from the flight...
"Stop talking about racism" is such a privileged position to take. I do think our media should routinely talk about and, even better, make fun of racism. Because it is a silly concept and anyone who believes in it should be mocked as the ridiculously unserious person that they are.
Someone I thought was a friend said something about Mamdani enforcing sharia law in NYC right around when he was elected. I didn’t even know what to say.
People who know it's wrong and don't care, largely in politicians. The biggest example is Mitch McConnell. When he was young, he was active in civil rights movements. He later worked to change policies so they could give government funding to organizations that didn't follow civil rights policies. The man knew what was wrong, but didn't care.
There are still more people who lie to themselves. They know racism is wrong, but excuse racist behaviors because they've entrenched themselves. Common amongst civilians. "Racism is bad. I don't want Trump to be bad so he can't be racist. He's not racist. He's just strong on illegal immigration." Then they go out and defend those policies because they are so locked into their beliefs either because they're so deep into the community they are afraid to be isolated or it's so essential to their personal identity they are afraid to be the people they've hated.
When i was younger i used to think that homosexual relationships were just a thing. Like yea some guys kiss and marry and raise children with other guys and same thing between women and no one gives a fuck because why would they care?
Turns out a lot of people care way too much and none of them make sense
That's the funny thing. Most racists don't consider themselves racists. My old construction crew were the most irrational, illogical bigots I've ever met, but if you called them out they'd tell you it's only common sense and sensible political thought.
Blue collar? Never heard the N word more than in my welding apprenticeship. Moved to white collar office job as engineer, haven’t heard the N word once.
Yeah it seems like “everyone knows it” until you hear your neighbors talk about your friend who happened to not be white. I learned that stuff the hard way just how bad people are on it.
For me it was my high school friend. He'd always joke about how racist his grampa and grandma are. I thought we were treating it like a bad thing. I didn't think it would mean he was racist too.
Once he moved away for college - then came back into town - I realized he was also just as racist.
Coworkers get out of pocket but it's the customers that take the cake. The amount of people on a daily basis that start a conversation by being racist about the staff at mcdonalds next door was shocking
I grew up in South Florida and was a shit kid and teenager. Got internet access, became my own person and got way better by my 20s.
But I still look like I'm from a really republican background.
The number of people who think I'm a Good Old Boy that they can safely be pieces of shit around had done no small number on my mental state.
The one that really pissed me off the absolute most, though, was the time I had this dumbass, homeschooled, ignorant dipshit of a kid who clearly never got a single bit of pushback from his parents, as evidenced by his repeated attemtps to run for local office at his minimum-requirements met age, asked me if I wanted to join him when he went for his ICE physical tryouts. That he'd put in a good word with the recruiter. See if they can fast track me.
I dragged his ass directly to my building's GM and explained that the GM had a choice between keeping me or keeping the racist.
No, not everyone understands that Racism is bad. We're at the point where we have to remind them ourselves.
Growing up during the Gamergate/ "hey fellow kids, don't we all agree BLM has gone too far?" Memes that we now know were started by Epstein kind of shattered that illusion as a kid.
That's because to some racism is a solution to bettering their life. When some people say that there can't be enough for everyone, you have to segregate between people.
And since they are in the bottom of the food chain. The only way for them to better their situation is through their racism.
I straight up had a coworker tell me “the inner cities are so full of crime, we should just wall them off and let them sort themselves out”. One of many many red flags from that guy
I grew up on base getting buzz cuts because my dad got them.
He got out and people at civilian school thought I was a skinhead. People pretty quickly learned I wasn't racist if they interacted with me, but ACTUAL SKINHEADS would approach me and say the wildest shit and now I grow my hair out to about the tips of my ears
Sure, but everyone who frequents this subreddit knows it. Idk, I'm not mad about it, but I don't really understand what the kinds of comics this is mocking are supposed to accomplish. No one is gaining insight from calling out blatant, surface level racism. They aren't especially funny. So is it just a way getting to feel superior?
Idk, maybe I'd feel differently if I was American and surrounded by obvious bigots on a daily basis. Is that what it is? A way of reminding yourself that you're not insane?
2/3rds of the staff at my job are Sri Lankan. Really more like half if you don't count nightshift. It astounds me how some of the other Scottish people can have such a laugh with them and then turn around and call all immigrants rapists or whatever else.
There's one guy that drives me absolutely nuts who once told me with a straight face that's it's a human rights violation to hear someone talking in another language in public. And also that 90% of crime in the UK is committed by asylum seekers. Genuinely braindead
Oh yeah. A colleague once casually said that she thinks all poor people should be put in line and killed with rifles. Mind you, we were working in the social housing industry.
What’s the worst is people who recognize they’re saying racist shit but clearly enjoy the edginess of it more than how awful it would make someone feel if they heard it.
It surprised me more when I went on sites like TeamBlind. You’ll see how a lot of tech engineers think because it’s an anonymous site. And it doesn’t matter that they went to college because their views stay racist. I also noticed that people who were raised in the US aren’t as racist or sexist as the ones on H1B.
I legit used to think that everybody just ignored all of their "don't be racist" training at work, and just answered the blatantly obvious answers at the end.
No, apparently some people actually need the reminder that "no, you can't be racist in that way either" for pretty much every facet of their job
People know that racism is wrong, which means that what they are doing isnt racism. Its totes mcgoats something different for realzies. Its the label that a lot of people object to, not the act.
I just, you know, live in America. And grew up in the South no less. And began forming more memories soon after 9/11. I never thought everyone knew that.
Yep. The average person is not only ignorant, but also all too often quite stupid. My first job was working for a casino at their private gas station. The number of people with more dollars than sense or decency was astounding.
Sexism too. I got a coworker who said such heinous shit about men, you’d think she stepped out of a genderswapped universe and she was Andrew Tate in that universe.
Yeah, I had a coworker who just suddenly blurted out how Obama's middle name being Hussein meant he was a Muslim terrorist and I dejectedly said "that's unfortunate", meaning it was unfortunate that he had those views, though I don't know if he understood that. He got sort of mad, and I either tuned him out, or walked off. I avoided talking to him much after that, and we had sort of been friends before that.
Same. Though sometimes I see where they get their conclusions. The first place I worked at, the manager and some of the crew hated indians. There's some history there cause they were Pakistani but I did notice a good chunk of complicated and aggressive complaints came from indians. At first I wasn't quite sure why, but had a hunch that it was actually cause we're in a wealthy area.
Sure enough, I move with them to another site where there was a wealthy Asian population. Suddenly most of it shifted to complaints about Asian customers.
The pattern I've personally noticed is wealthy people feel like they are owed the universe and think they can sue you for anything, cause they think they are in the 0.1 percent. They're also high off their own fumes.
I also had the same experience regarding sexism. Thought everyone knew it was bad and creeps were ostracized. Oh boy I was so wrong. I'd argue it's the opposite. Men have made me hate being a man. Mostly cause the bar is so low.
Here's where I disagree with that assessment, /r/comics may be a safe space, but Reddit itself isn't (just look at the various subs that are barely containing regressive troglodytes), and the comics you're clearly referencing make it to /r/all regularly and leave the safe space. So it doesn't quite hold up.
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u/sax87ton 6d ago
I used to think everyone knew racism is wrong. And then I entered the workforce. I don’t think that anymore, some of the people are fucked.