This question was spawned by the "Lost a friend..." thread. Right now (and before the election) there is the call to white people to talk with and engage their their friends and relatives about their racism and not having them vote Trump or at least show up at the elections. This is a strategy that I can definitely get down with.
But when is the boundary crossed for when you have to drop that friend or family member? It's easy for me as a white person to drop a friend because of racism but I'm not the one who's going to face the bigotry. And since there's the call by scholars and activists to have white people engage their white relatives and friends, I would feel bad for not continuously trying to engage it (until a border has been crossed), so it seems counterproductive to drop them. At the same time, staying with the friend and trying to be diplomatic can also be an implicit approval of her/his bigotry, as already mentioned in the other thread, and we don't want to legitimize bigotry as a political opinion.
I.e. it's an incredible difficult balance. If anyone has suggestions/ideas on how to tackle this, I'd highly appreciate input.
But when is the boundary crossed for when you have to drop that friend or family member? It's easy for me as a white person to drop a friend because of racism but I'm not the one who's going to face the bigotry. And since there's the call by scholars and activists to have white people engage their white relatives and friends, I would feel bad for not continuously trying to engage it (until a border has been crossed), so it seems counterproductive to drop them. At the same time, staying with the friend and trying to be diplomatic can also be an implicit approval of her/his bigotry, as already mentioned in the other thread, and we don't want to legitimize bigotry as a political opinion.
I.e. it's an incredible difficult balance. If anyone has suggestions/ideas on how to tackle this, I'd highly appreciate input.