this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
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So first off, white guy here so I will kindly leave if this isn’t my place to speak
But onto my point, anyone who claims the key factor of racism is intent can fuck right off like the idiots they are. I’m sorry you went thru that OP
It's like. Most people know on some level that racism is bad. And they don't want to be bad, so they don't want to consider that they could be racist, cause in their eyes that would make them bad people. Like there's some binary between the evil racist people and the good, not racist, normal people. But the thing is, racism is built into our entire society, our culture, everything. Everyone will learn some racist beliefs just living in this world. You have to confront that. But you can't do that if you're to obsessed with this "but I'm not a bad person" shit
Anyone who doesn't occassionally sincerely ask themselves the questions, "how might I be wrong?", "what might my own biases be blinding me to?," and, of course, "am I a bad person?" is not only ignorant, but is indeed a bad person because they're not willing to reflect on how their willful ignorance is hurting both themselves and those around them.
Learning to be uncomfortable with your own beliefs and wrestling and coming to terms with them, and, most importantly, changing your point of view over time with the aim of increasing your empathy for others not like you, is part of what it means to be an adult. There are very few adults in this world.
Ok like. Most of this I agree with but I hate the redefining of "adult". How is this an adult thing if so few actual adults fit it and most people I know who would qualify as an adult under this are actual children
I don't consider people who are unwilling or incapable of self reflection and change to be capable of maturing (at least in any way that is helpful to communities and societies), and thereby don't constitute having achieved adulthood.
It makes sense if you think about how mean spirited preteens/teenagers can be and how many "adults" never really grow out of that. I consider these people to be "stunted" and/or "stuck" at a particular point in their self actualization where they were unable or unwilling to change their point of view because it made them feel bad about themselves or challenged their sense of self.
Instead of doing the hard work of growing up and reorienting their sense of self around a new paradigm (i.e. one based off of empathy for others of different races), they simply decided to ignore the uncomfortable possibility that they might be in the wrong, and were essentially lazy about challenging their own beliefs.
Again, not very mature, sounds a lot like a complaining angry teenager to me. And yeah, there are A LOT of people I would say are play acting as adults rather than actually being one. But that's just my not so humble opinion.