I've been sitting here for the past 5 minutes just sobbing into my hands. I watched the Philandro Castile video and I feel broken. It isn't the first time I've seen a video of a black man being killed by police, but it never gets any easier, but I don't usually break down afterwards.
But that on top of a realization I made yesterday about a close family member tipped me over the edge. I argue with my brother a lot over politics and stuff, he's conservative and idolizes Ben Shapiro. He sent me some fucking stupid video about how 800m Muslims are radical. This kind of rocked me at first, because that's a pretty sweeping generalization to make. I watch the video, it's about some dumb misunderstanding about Shariah Law. We go back and forth for a bit about it a bit. He starts talking about how refugees are raping everyone in Europe and how white supremacists aren't doing that. Wtf? I think. I point out the incident in Portland where some guy stabs 3 people for trying to intervene when he was shouting the n-word at a couple of black Muslim girls.
And then he starts texting shit like this:
How the fuck do I deal with this shit? We were so fucking close, he's only 2 years younger than I am. He never used to be like this. He worked construction for a few years about 5 years back and I guess he had some bad experiences with some of his black coworkers. After that he started getting into politics, watching conservative pundits, and now he's a total believer. I've been trying so hard to walk him through how to fact check all these videos so he can come to the realization that he's wrong by himself, but his beliefs are fanatical. Everyone else but a few conservative pundits are fake news.
I mean, it's not like I didn't know my family were right-leaning politically, but my parents are more like diet racists, they don't feel any ill-will towards any races, but they grew up Republican during the Reagan years so they're not going to change.
But seeing this blind hatred for Muslims from my brother, and delusional ignorance, it's a new realization for me. It's the first time my brother's racism was brought out into the open, where he declared it to me, loud and proud. No disguises, no metaphors, my brother is a massive racist. Like, not just believing stupid politics shit, he literally believes Muslims are all murderers and rapists and they deserve to die kind of racist.
I feel so broken now. I rely so heavily on my familial network for emotional support to get through my life and I feel like someone just triggered a bomb inside my emotional foundation.
How do you guys deal, emotionally, when faced with this level of hatred from someone you thought you were close to?
But that on top of a realization I made yesterday about a close family member tipped me over the edge. I argue with my brother a lot over politics and stuff, he's conservative and idolizes Ben Shapiro. He sent me some fucking stupid video about how 800m Muslims are radical. This kind of rocked me at first, because that's a pretty sweeping generalization to make. I watch the video, it's about some dumb misunderstanding about Shariah Law. We go back and forth for a bit about it a bit. He starts talking about how refugees are raping everyone in Europe and how white supremacists aren't doing that. Wtf? I think. I point out the incident in Portland where some guy stabs 3 people for trying to intervene when he was shouting the n-word at a couple of black Muslim girls.
And then he starts texting shit like this:
How the fuck do I deal with this shit? We were so fucking close, he's only 2 years younger than I am. He never used to be like this. He worked construction for a few years about 5 years back and I guess he had some bad experiences with some of his black coworkers. After that he started getting into politics, watching conservative pundits, and now he's a total believer. I've been trying so hard to walk him through how to fact check all these videos so he can come to the realization that he's wrong by himself, but his beliefs are fanatical. Everyone else but a few conservative pundits are fake news.
I mean, it's not like I didn't know my family were right-leaning politically, but my parents are more like diet racists, they don't feel any ill-will towards any races, but they grew up Republican during the Reagan years so they're not going to change.
But seeing this blind hatred for Muslims from my brother, and delusional ignorance, it's a new realization for me. It's the first time my brother's racism was brought out into the open, where he declared it to me, loud and proud. No disguises, no metaphors, my brother is a massive racist. Like, not just believing stupid politics shit, he literally believes Muslims are all murderers and rapists and they deserve to die kind of racist.
I feel so broken now. I rely so heavily on my familial network for emotional support to get through my life and I feel like someone just triggered a bomb inside my emotional foundation.
How do you guys deal, emotionally, when faced with this level of hatred from someone you thought you were close to?
