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Vox: Research says there are ways to reduce racism. Calling people racist isn’t one.

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Derwind

Member
This reminds me of how a lot of colleges that have a policy where a sexual assault victim has to meet with her attacker, cause of reasons. Not the same, but it is interesting how similar tactics are used against victims.

Pretty much, the onus to have a conversation, change their mentality and invoke empathy is always on the people that are victimized and not the offending party.

It would be funny as some sort of satire and not a reality for millions.
 
I think the best way to approach it is to call the action racist without calling / writing off the person who did it as racist (assuming they seem ignorant and not malicious).

Obligatory Jay Smooth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc

I could see that bit I don't really know.

But I do know nonviolent communication works.

I mean, you have to recognize that all racial progress America has made has been heavily driven by violent action as well as nonviolent. Slavery didn't end because any particularly large set of people actually got convinced it was bad, it ended because of a shockingly bloody war, and because of uprisings where people actually killed slaveowners and destroyed their property. The Civil Rights movement needed the Black Panthers as much as it needed nonviolent protest (and even the nonviolent side was still invested in disrupting society and inflicting economic damage.)
 
In my opinion, the term or label racist is thrown around so liberally (no pun intended) and erroneously now that I think it's lost it's impact.
 

Infinite

Member
Is this article trying to say that this hypothetical man's concerns are being literally and directly downplayed by a hypothetical politician or racial justice activist? Because that is ridiculous. I mean, someone please fill me in if poor white working class citizens are coming to their representatives for help and are directly being told, "Too bad, suck it up, others have it worse." Because that's what's being said here.

My guess is that this excerpt is referring to the notion that rural white communities are suffering from things like poverty and drug addiction and are unhappy that solutions aren't immediately forthcoming while social issues and similar economic issues in minority communities are being openly discussed by politicians as well. Because, and let's be clear, when poverty and drug addiction were sweeping urban minority communities, the biggest and loudest response was a cry for personal responsibility and the passage of laws disproportionately throwing these individuals in jail. Now that opioids are sweeping through predominately white rural communities, other solutions are suddenly on the table. Don't take me wrong: I'm happy that the right solutions are now being discussed, but it should have been discussed a long time ago when minority communities were suffering without a voice. So to claim that this problem is being ignored is nonsense when, in actuality, those in power have just started paying attention to it because of the nature of the communities involved.

So I'm going to have to push back at the notion that the white working class is being ignored by "politicians and racial justice activists" in favor of minorities. The reality as told to this country by the results of the election is that the white working class is realizing that poverty and drug abuse are not exclusive problems to their communities and are wondering why their needs aren't being prioritized over the needs of communities who have been suffering from these problems without help for decades.
Thank you for this post. This has been a thing that's been bothering me a lot during the fallout of the election.
 

Jonm1010

Banned
I agree that they are the problem, but I think it's also important to look at what works regardless. I also don't think this particular tactic really applies to the overall online world where getting everybody to hold their anger and disgust in for brief and frank one on one conversations is an impossible task.
Online interactions inherently leave out the vast majority of the components that make up human interaction. So much is non-verbal and reflective in tone, inflection, ebbs and flow that pursuing what this article speaks of online is probably much, much more difficult.

As to the OP, I would like to see further research on this. Aspects of it far precede this study, like how shame and attacking a person tends to force a person to calcify and get defensive. But better clarifying the detailed mechanisms of how this works and if this isn't just a fluke or failing to account for some lurking variables that are biasing the results.
 

Noirulus

Member
I always believed in this. If you persecute someone rather than teach them why they're wrong it'll only increase their hate. Especially if they're falsely accused.
 

B4s5C

Member
Exactly. When data doesn't paint a picture you like to see, then the primary goal is to find something wrong with the data. It's not as well understood as climate change, it's not a well-funded, broad research project, it's not hard science. Anecdotes do prove it wrong. Therefore it can be dismissed.

Thank you.
 
I swear we've had like 7 different threads about this very same thing. I think any minority that feels that coddling bigots is not the way to go has a right to feel that way and should not have to subscribe to it. However these white liberals calling for this shit should be the ones educating the racists not us, we tried, and they voted Trump. Another thing I don't understand is why is it up to the oppressed to teach other people not to shit on them? Why not teach the other side not to be fucking bigots instead of telling minorities to suck it up?
 

ishibear

is a goddamn bear
God this is just... ugh.

Everybody thinks they have the answer until the bottom falls out. Hush mode follows.
 
As to the OP, I would like to see further research on this. Aspects of it far precede this study, like how shame and attacking a person tends to force a person to calcify and get defensive. But better clarifying the detailed mechanisms of how this works and if this isn't just a fluke or failing to account for some lurking variables that are biasing the results.

Agreed, I would like to see further study as well.

It reminds me of a video I saw a while back...I'll have to see if I can find it. Something about people having racist/bigoted views, and then encountering a member of that group on camera and being forced to treat them as an actual human being, hug them, something like that. And it left some people changed, just that small ounce of interaction. Sure, some of them probably walked away thinking "well that was one of the good ones," but after enough interactions with "the good ones," you start to think maybe there are more good than bad.
 

B4s5C

Member
I swear we've had like 7 different threads about this very same thing. I think any minority that feels that coddling bigots is not the way to go has a right to feel that way and should not have to subscribe to it. However these white liberals calling for this shit should be the ones educating the racists not us, we tried, and they voted Trump. Another thing I don't understand is why is it up to the oppressed to teach other people not to shit on them? Why not teach the other side not to be fucking bigots instead of telling minorities to suck it up?

Who is telling minorities they have to do the talking and only then?

Why can't it be All people who aren't racist engaging woth racists. If you are up to it, you are up to it, if not, don't. But don't call out the people trying to use this tactic as coddlers or sympathizers.
 

Slayven

Member
I am calling my shot now. in a few years when white women either have no health care, or have to pay out the nose for it.

When white men don't get those cushy union 100k a year factory jobs back.

When white families see that little bit of food stamps that was helping them get by get snatched up.

Then a whole lot of people are going to want to talk, lot of conversations will be going on.

Can't blame the scary black man in the white house, can't blame harry reid, can't blame the scary MSM. They will have to look in the mirror
 

Infinite

Member
I always believed in this. If you persecute someone rather than teach them why they're wrong it'll only increase their hate. Especially if they're falsely accused.
calling out bad behavior isn't persecution it's actually apart of the teaching process. I don't get falsely accused part.
 
I am calling my shot now. in a few years when white women either have no health care, or have to pay out the nose for it.

When white men don't get those cushy union 100k a year factory jobs back.

When white families see that little bit of food stamps that was helping them get by get snatched up.

Then a whole lot of people are going to want to talk, lot of conversations will be going on.

Can't blame the scary black man in the white house, can't blame harry reid, can't blame the scary MSM. They will have to look in the mirror

But they won't. They'll blame illegal immigrants, they'll blame globalization, they'll blame Democrats.

Thank you.

Best not to take a single study on a tangentially related social cause as gospel. It's not about being "anti-science", it's just that when you've been as involved in academia as much as I have, you start to see individual studies in a different light. Especially when they're then reported by the media and taken in different contexts. Which Vox didn't do as egregiously as some other outlets do, but even they wouldn't pretend like arguing against Vox's point makes you "anti-science".
 

B4s5C

Member
I am calling my shot now. in a few years when white women either have no health care, or have to pay out the nose for it.

When white men don't get those cushy union 100k a year factory jobs back.

When white families see that little bit of food stamps that was helping them get by get snatched up.

Then a whole lot of people are going to want to talk, lot of conversations will be going on.

Can't blame the scary black man in the white house, can't blame harry reid, can't blame the scary MSM.

If you don't engage with them, they will blame it on whatever they want and most likely the wrong thing and then we will be at the exact same place we are right now.
 
Is this article trying to say that this hypothetical man's concerns are being literally and directly downplayed by a hypothetical politician or racial justice activist? Because that is ridiculous. I mean, someone please fill me in if poor white working class citizens are coming to their representatives for help and are directly being told, "Too bad, suck it up, others have it worse." Because that's what's being said here.

My guess is that this excerpt is referring to the notion that rural white communities are suffering from things like poverty and drug addiction and are unhappy that solutions aren't immediately forthcoming while social issues and similar economic issues in minority communities are being openly discussed by politicians as well. Because, and let's be clear, when poverty and drug addiction were sweeping urban minority communities, the biggest and loudest response was a cry for personal responsibility and the passage of laws disproportionately throwing these individuals in jail. Now that opioids are sweeping through predominately white rural communities, other solutions are suddenly on the table. Don't take me wrong: I'm happy that the right solutions are now being discussed, but it should have been discussed a long time ago when minority communities were suffering without a voice. So to claim that this problem is being ignored is nonsense when, in actuality, those in power have just started paying attention to it because of the nature of the communities involved.

So I'm going to have to push back at the notion that the white working class is being ignored by "politicians and racial justice activists" in favor of minorities. The reality as told to this country by the results of the election is that the white working class is realizing that poverty and drug abuse are not exclusive problems to their communities and are wondering why their needs aren't being prioritized over the needs of communities who have been suffering from these problems without help for decades.

Give me life with this.
 

spock

Member
The difficulty for most people is separating "racism" from the "person" acting racist. The racist ideas and thought patterns are not just ideas for these folks but wiring in their brain triggered by various external stimuli and responses. What the study is showing is these internal connections and networks can be changed and reshaped (neuroplasticity for the win!).

Most people have a tendency to define a persons identity by the thoughts, words, etc. they express. Obviously this makes sense to some degree, however on a deeper level there is a person beyond all that. The person was not born but built into what they are. I think its easier to work with these folks when you understand that the racist aspects they have do not completely define them but are a fraction of the sum of all their moving parts in a much more complex system.
 
I am calling my shot now. in a few years when white women either have no health care, or have to pay out the nose for it.

When white men don't get those cushy union 100k a year factory jobs back.

When white families see that little bit of food stamps that was helping them get by get snatched up.

Then a whole lot of people are going to want to talk, lot of conversations will be going on.

Can't blame the scary black man in the white house, can't blame harry reid, can't blame the scary MSM. They will have to look in the mirror

Ha the ones that really want a handout AFTER shaming minority communities for getting government handouts will find someone to blame. The fact that they have found numerous groups before proves this.

Their mediocrity is pathetic and the media that feeds them their daily dosage of complacency is disgusting.
 

cdyhybrid

Member
I am calling my shot now. in a few years when white women either have no health care, or have to pay out the nose for it.

When white men don't get those cushy union 100k a year factory jobs back.

When white families see that little bit of food stamps that was helping them get by get snatched up.

Then a whole lot of people are going to want to talk, lot of conversations will be going on.

Can't blame the scary black man in the white house, can't blame harry reid, can't blame the scary MSM. They will have to look in the mirror
They're going to blame Obama after Trump tells them he needs for more years to fix the "damage" Obama did to the country.
 

Slayven

Member
But they won't. They'll blame illegal immigrants, they'll blame globalization, they'll blame Democrats.

If you don't engage with them, they will blame it on whatever they want and most likely the wrong thing and then we will be at the exact same place we are right now.

Minorities are tired of fixing America, we will still do it. But goddman I wish we could actually benefit from it.

Trump promised the world, and believe or not I think they will hold him to that promise.
 

SeanTSC

Member
Anecdotal evidence - Bullshit.

It's worked for me on my dad. Calling him out as a racist every time he opened his mouth to say "nigger" when he saw a black person made him stop doing it and feel shame about his behavior. Calling out and shaming bad behavior works.

We absolutely do not have to "empathize" with a lot of forms of racism. Sometimes you just need to tell someone they're being bad.
 

Valhelm

contribute something
Sure would be nice if these white liberals would talk to their racist family members and friends.

This, definitely. We need to engage with racists and help them overcome their views, but the burden really shouldn't be on people of color.

Racists are also a lot more likely to listen to white progressives.

Anecdotal evidence - Bullshit.

It's worked for me on my dad. Calling him out as a racist every time he opened his mouth to say "nigger" when he saw a black person made him stop doing it and feel shame about his behavior. Calling out and shaming bad behavior works.

I think that's kind of an isolated case. Most racists don't say the n-word or think of themselves as racists. For these people, it's more useful to explain why certain assumptions they hold are hateful and harmful.
 

BajiBoxer

Banned
What works is getting Trump supporters to comprehend that their man has blown every racist dogwhistle imaginable and they need to tell him to cut it the fuck out. That he can articulate his policies without letting all the bigots come out their holes.

And this tactic may give an in for that sort of comprehension. It's not about getting everyone to live in harmony over night, it's about cracking the armor and getting them to at least back the fuck off a bit. And yeah, it probably will be up to some white people to do this. They need to be confronted AND manipulated, and these people talk about this stuff a lot differently around other white people.
 
If you don't engage with them, they will blame it on whatever they want and most likely the wrong thing and then we will be at the exact same place we are right now.

I agree.

Minorities are tired of fixing America, we will still do it. But goddman I wish we couldn't actually benefit from it.

Trump promised the world, and believe or not I think they will hold him to that promise.

No one else is going to do it. This is what we have to do because of our position.

And this is what we do because it's about making the world better for our children.
 
Minorities are tired of fixing America, we will still do it. But goddman I wish we couldn't actually benefit from it.

Trump promised the world, and believe or not I think they will hold him to that promise.

LOL we even gave up hope on getting reparations. We keep on giving this country 0% interest loans that they default on.

Nah but tell me more about how white rural America is so misunderstood and battered.
 

B4s5C

Member
Obligatory Jay Smooth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc



I mean, you have to recognize that all racial progress America has made has been heavily driven by violent action as well as nonviolent. Slavery didn't end because any particularly large set of people actually got convinced it was bad, it ended because of a shockingly bloody war, and because of uprisings where people actually killed slaveowners and destroyed their property. The Civil Rights movement needed the Black Panthers as much as it needed nonviolent protest (and even the nonviolent side was still invested in disrupting society and inflicting economic damage.)

Nonviolent communication doesn't refer to peaceful protests (if that's the argument you are making

From Wikipedia:

Nonviolent Communication (abbreviated NVC, also called Compassionate Communication or Collaborative Communication) is a communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s. It focuses on three aspects of communication: self-empathy (defined as a deep and compassionate awareness of one's own inner experience), empathy (understanding and sharing an emotion expressed by another), and honest self-expression (defined as expressing oneself authentically in a way that is likely to inspire compassion in others).


Nonviolent Communication is based on the idea that all human beings have the capacity for compassion and only resort to violence or behavior that harms others when they don't recognize more effective strategies for meeting needs. Habits of thinking and speaking that lead to the use of violence (psychological and physical) are learned through culture. NVC theory supposes all human behavior stems from attempts to meet universal human needs and that these needs are never in conflict. Rather, conflict arises when strategies for meeting needs clash. NVC proposes that if people can identify their needs, the needs of others, and the feelings that surround these needs, harmony can be achieved.


The communication style works. But it takes a lot of conscious effort and patience.
 
AND YET people resist putting in the work to do the former.

Because everyone puts the onus on minorities while they sit in their ivory tower doing nothing except talking down to minorities telling them "please understand/empathise/reach out to these people who hate you for simply existing".

If white moderates put in half the work in talking and opening dialog with racists as they do telling minorities to do it, we probably could have ended racism ages ago.
 

Cromat

Member
This should have been glaringly obvious. Take heed, left-leaning people. Insults, even if they are deserved, are not arguments. I've had success in changing people's minds through calm conversation in my personal life.
 
I agree.



No one else is going to do it. This is what we have to do because of our position.

And this is what we do because it's about making the world better for our children.

Forget my unborn children I'm trying to eat without having a cross burned on my lawn.

This should have been glaringly obvious. Take heed, left-leaning people. Insults, even if they are deserved, are not arguments. I've had success in changing people's minds through calm conversation in my personal life.

I'll try to remember this when I get called a porch monkey. Thank you for your insight.
 

Slayven

Member
This should have been glaringly obvious. Take heed, left-leaning people. Insults, even if they are deserved, are not arguments. I've had success in changing people's minds through calm conversation in my personal life.

Why is being against racism and racists suddenly a "left/liberal" thing? The GOP are the party of Lincoln.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Obligatory Jay Smooth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc



I mean, you have to recognize that all racial progress America has made has been heavily driven by violent action as well as nonviolent. Slavery didn't end because any particularly large set of people actually got convinced it was bad, it ended because of a shockingly bloody war, and because of uprisings where people actually killed slaveowners and destroyed their property. The Civil Rights movement needed the Black Panthers as much as it needed nonviolent protest (and even the nonviolent side was still invested in disrupting society and inflicting economic damage.)

Gonna' need a citation for that. You can argue that slave uprisings and stuff like John Brown's raid further escalated the situation and made nonviolent or diplomatic diffusal of the Civil War impossible, but there was no successful slave uprising in the US, not in terms of making the slaves free, in creating emancipation laws, or in actually improving the lives of the slaves. Slave uprisings like Turner's only increased draconian slaveholding measures.

More to the point, without the Civil War there's absolutely no way slaves would have successfully won their freedom through revolt. They were simply outnumbered and outgunned too heavily; Haiti had the benefit of far more slaves and blacks than small or big whites on the island, and they "only" had to contend with foreign troops cut down by tropical diseases before they ever got to the fighting.
 
Minorities are tired of fixing America, we will still do it. But goddman I wish we could actually benefit from it.

Trump promised the world, and believe or not I think they will hold him to that promise.


That is what I keep saying but people don't believe it. They think his whiteness will save him from all criticism. It will not. When people are not getting relief they will look to Trump and realized he has failed them. Just another politician came to town and did nothing but lie.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
We've been doing this for 200 years. And we're currently backsliding after some steps forward. Saying this does nothing but further distance is ignoring that distance isn't being filled *anyway*.

Which is exactly what I meant by not on a wide enough scale and slow as molasses. And then that one incident has to fight against their parents constant reinforcement and them not wanting to be ostracized from their peers.

I love how being called a racist is now a slur. It's incredible. Again this doesn't change what I originally said. This is slow and on such a small scale acting as though it's some silver bullet to racism is off.
I agree that incidents like that will have to fight against the parents' constant reinforcement. I'm not trying to paint being civil as being some kind of silver bullet to racism, and I'm not saying that racists need to be coddled. Racism should not be tolerated. I agree with you that the country looked like it was going in the right direction for years, but suddenly has been set back by decades because of Trump.

Racism is wrong, sexism is wrong, and homophobia is wrong. I fucking hate Trump and all of his views with a ferocity that I can't put into words. The general progress against bigotry that civilization as a whole has doing well against until now has been set back by decades, and I place the blame purely because he and his fucking filth has been on the world stage constantly over the past year.

But I don't think fighting hate with hate is the answer. The racist and bigoted views are deplorable and the actions based on them are deplorable, and they should not be tolerated. But you can't dehumanize the people who hold those views because they will never change if you do. Attack the views, but not the people. Attacking the people would probably create more racists in the long run because all the racism would be enforced with "Look, they hate us anyway." It's not logical but from the perspective of racists, it would just reinforce their views that minorities should be hated.

I think the younger generation is generally more accepting of race and sexual orientation because they grew up around it more. It's hard to be a racist when you grew up hanging out with minorities and seeing that all the bullshit that your parents may spew towards you about them is completely unfounded. But if everyone steps up the hate towards each other, it will reinforce those views.

Saying "dude, that's racist" is different from saying "dude, you're racist." One can be detached from the person. The other can't.
 
Wut. There's nothing wrong with the data. There isn't anything particularly wrong with the study. There's nothing wrong with Vox using it as a jumping off point.

There's definitely something wrong with people pretending like this is irrefutable fact and that people who in turn disagree with the discussion that Vox has started are "anti-science" or "anti-facts". That's pretty intellectually dishonest.

There are quite a few people here who would disagree with you on that, though:

Anecdotal evidence - Bullshit.

This is essentially restating what I had said. It's all anecdotal evidence.
 

Cromat

Member
Why is being against racism and racists suddenly a "left/liberal" thing? The GOP are the party of Lincoln.

You're right, I should have worded it differently.

What I meant was that if telling a Trump supporter that they are racist accomplishes nothing. It won't convince them, and it is intellectually lazy because it doesn't actually present an argument for why specific racist claims are false and damaging.
 

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
I think those who exhibit overt racism are a lost cause.

With those who exhibit Unconscious Bias or Diet Racism; I think conversation can be beneficial.
 

SeanTSC

Member
I think that's kind of an isolated case. Most racists don't say the n-word or think of themselves as racists. For these people, it's more useful to explain why certain assumptions they hold are hateful and harmful.

I don't agree that it's isolated. People who voted the Trumpenreich into office need to be told, to their face, that their actions are racist as shit: You voted in a racist bigot who is appointing a shitload of White Supremacists to power and you're basically supporting Neo-Nazi's and the KKK. Letting this orange turd and his cabal of fascists into power means you did something extremely racist. We shouldn't pussyfoot around telling them that.

They need to feel shame about that and acknowledge that they did a Bad Thing.
 
I recently took the middleground approach and have basically been presenting it not as my Trump-voting friends/family being bigoted, but rather that their willingness to vote for Trump indicates a certain degree of acceptability to his bigotry.
 
This thread confirms to me that minorities are not allowed to be angry and that they just need to eat shit and be happy. Let's ignore that we have tried the calm and nice approach for years and we still do it now. But we are the ones wrong for being angry and frustrated while racist people get a pass because "they don't know better"
 
You know, thinking more about it, it's interesting that the narrative is rarely "how should we have a reasonable conversation with privileged people about progress without undermining the legitimacy of oppressed peoples?". The power structure is so ingrained that "how should minorities ask to be treated like people?" seems like the natural conclusion to "white people don't like to hear about race", even though it's a pretty outlandish interpretation of the problem.

Granted, there's a case for "we need better language to describe white culture in context", but it immediately turns into this mess.
 

Breads

Banned
Well, this is factually incorrect. Believe what you will

Yeah, PoliGAF.

I'll find some posts.

Still waiting.

What? Victory lap? I voted for Hillary, look at my post history? Also, if you haven't seen what I have been talking about then you are either being disingenuous or blind.

I called you dishonest because I don't believe you. You have the concern troll stink all over you and this is not the first time I got that vibe from you.

I know this might come as a shock, but the vast majority of people don't care about social justice and do not think about whether something is offensive or not. They just do what they think is fun (for right, or in this case, wrong).

The media, and forums like this, tend to hyper focus on these issues, making them seem much more popular than they are, while the rest of the world ignores them.

I does not surprise me at all that we keep seeing examples like this.

Note: I do not condone the behavior, just trying to bring light to the reason you keep seeing it happen.

So much concern...

Forgive me if I choose to continue to call a racist a racist.
 
I always figured the problem wasn't that people were unaware that being confrontational will always net you worse results so much as it's virtually impossible to remain non-confrontational when the world keeps producing fresh racists. The only thing more exhausting than having the burden of pointing out injustice falling upon the victims of it is knowing they're going to have to keep doing it over and over again forever.

On the flip side there's a large group of people who simply don't listen until someone yells at them because they've spent their whole life privileged enough to tune everything out and get along just fine.

The fundamental problem with trying to have an even conversation remains that in general one group comes to the table with a leg up over the other and no perspective to see it that way before getting there. And of course you can always guarantee if you are someone who embraces pragmatism and nurturing understanding in society that the following generation will see you as a sell-out no matter what you do. To some extent it's the fault of the media and the political and educational systems in this country that the "extremism" tag gets marched out to de-legitimize points of view which need to be deconstructed instead of ignored to understand and actually address. This is true on both sides of the aisle.
 
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