Being a racist while having a soft skull

[Belz...]

Sounds like everyday life as a woman. Yet somehow we don't go round punching every man who makes a sexist comment.

No you slap us instead.

But honestly I think African Americans have had it a bit worse than women, historically. Except black women, obviously.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

This makes me think of something I saw on Twitter the other day. Picture of a young white female nurse and she said that she walked into a hospital room with an elderly woman who was a dementia patient, who immediately said "who's this whore?" upon seeing her.

Sometimes the elderly, whether they have diagnosed dementia or not, say and do things that reflect where their cognition is at and where it's headed, and the era they grew up in, etc.

This is why all of us tend to dread getting stuck behind a grey haired little lady in traffic.

It is incumbent upon the younger of us to try to have understanding and empathy for the elderly. If you're a nurse and they call you a slut, just remember what the situation is, and don't take it personally. Don't out them for it, don't name and shame them. At least that nurse didn't post anything to indicate who the patient was, even if she still did insist on cashing in for a few attention / victim points on social media over the incident.

If you're stuck behind a slow elderly driver, or stuck behind an old woman plucking coupons out of her purse at the checkout line, or you're trying to walk in the entry door to a public establishment and an elderly person with a walker is delaying you hugely, don't honk your horn. Don't let out a big sigh. Don't say "get moving!" - call upon your inner patience and understanding, and maybe hold the door for them or at the very least, remain calm and patient and quiet.

I realize that someone being directly confrontational and accusatory toward you when you're working a service job is a bit different from the above examples, but to be a functional society we need to have young men who work at Dunkin Donuts, get yelled at by a nearly 80 year old man, and start off being deferential and helpful, and if they really do reach a point where they see no further possibility of satisfying that customer, the worst point they should be capable of getting to is rolling their eyes, maybe saying something like "you're crazy" or just firmly telling them they need to leave.

Whether a racial slur is used or not, or any other type of slur, punching an elderly person is an incredibly violent, reckless, and low impulse control thing to do.

Society doesn't work when young people operate like that.

We have a subset of people in our society who just don't have good impulse control or ability to think about long term consequences. Young people already have disadvantages in this area, and then to add biological subgroup disadvantages on top of it, it's no wonder that particular slice of society accounts for so much death and destruction.

The more such people are around, the less worthy this thing we are living in is to bear the name "civilization" at all.

Whatever it was that old man called him, he sure went about proving the guy correct in a hurry. Hope he rots in jail for all time.

 

[ponderingturtle]

My mother-in-law wasn't racist a moment that I knew her up until she turned 73 and went into the nursing home. Now it's absolutely terrible. Nothing else has changed, she's just become a racist **** out of nowhere.

She was finally around some non white people?

 

[Skeptic Tank]

She was finally around some non white people?

That'll do it.

A big part of why I was an avowed anti-racist for the first 2/3rds of my life or so, was that I lived in very white areas during that time.

 

[plague311]

She was finally around some non white people?

Considering those "non white" people are on TV, that'd be pretty ****** up, but who am I to say? This is North Dakota and she moved into a nursing home in a town with a population of 713 people. I don't think there's an individual black person in the town, let alone in her immediate area. That's for that blatantly racist ******** though.

ETA: I was completely and entirely wrong. She did move into a huge bastion of diversity...

The racial makeup of the city was 98.0% White, 0.1% African American, 0.1% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.1% from other races, and 1.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.4% of the population.

Mind you, she doesn't leave assisted living because she can't drive\walk fully on her own.

We have a subset of people in our society who just don't have good impulse control or ability to think about long term consequences. Young people already have disadvantages in this area, and then to add biological subgroup disadvantages on top of it, it's no wonder that particular slice of society accounts for so much death and destruction.

We agree! Old ass white people should learn to stay home and shut up. They should realize they're a burden on all of society for the reasons you laid out perfectly in this post.

Good call ST. We finally agree on something. Let us both pray that the old white people subgroup dies off quickly so we can return to a civilized society.

 

[cullennz]

Okay that was the first time in the history of this and all possible universes he called a black guy the N-word.

And?

Racial slurs aren't on the "The first one's free" list.

a) We only have the thugs wprd the old bloke did use any racist terms.

b) If the bloke did use a racist term, we don't know what the term was.

 

[8enotto]

Either way the older gentleman made a serious mistake in thinking, or by not thinking at all, that the other wouldn't react.

I am one white guy in a city of Mexicans. I have no issues getting goods or services, nobody seems to hate me.

And I certainly don't hate any of them. Earning acceptance as a person here took time and spewing racist garbage wouldn't have helped.

It's all in the way one approaches it. People are people and good people get treated good. The rest I try to avoid. Just like when I wore a uniform.

 

[cullennz]

Either way the older gentleman made a serious mistake in thinking, or by not thinking at all, that the other wouldn't react.

I am one white guy in a city of Mexicans. I have no issues getting goods or services, nobody seems to hate me.

And I certainly don't hate any of them. Earning acceptance as a person here took time and spewing racist garbage wouldn't have helped.

It's all in the way one approaches it. People are people and good people get treated good. The rest I try to avoid. Just like when I wore a uniform.

True.

That should keep the punchers mind at ease as he spends 30 odd years in his jail cell.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I think this is connecting dots that don't need to be connected.

To my mind it's over-elevating racism to call it a political view in the first place but even if you grant it that I think there's still a ways to go to suggest that for example shouting out '*******' from a passing car to a group of black men would constitute a political opinion.

Not every insult, slur, drunken mumble, or scream epithet needs to be elevated to the level of protected speech... sometimes it's just a nasty ****** being a nasty ******.

Meadmaker went in a very different direction than I was thinking, and I don't really agree with his assessment of racism being a political view. It's a belief, and to me it's more akin to religion. That said, at least some people in the world seem to hold their politics as religion.

My view on it was that the general behavior of "might makes right" is one that is very frequently, and in my view often appropriately, associated with religion and with authoritarian political approaches. I can understand a perspective that equates silencing an offensive view by the application of violence with "politics", even though I think that's a weak comparison.

 

[Emily's Cat]

How is it unlike me? I've seen posters having a positive view about the fact that the old man got punched or died, but that's not the accusation. The accusation is that they think violence is an appropriate reaction to his bigotry.

It's possible to enjoy the outcome without condoning the action. I don't see what's strange or hard to understand about this.

It's gray and fuzzy.

I believe that you do not view yourself as condoning the action, and I know you well enough to think that this is very likely true. On the other hand, however, you seem to be assuming that other posters in this thread are also expressing the same sentiment as you, and I disagree with that. I think that other posters in this thread do view violence as an appropriate action, and that they condone the action.

I'm perfectly happy to exclude you from that list... but I'm not at all convinced that the same generosity should be extended to everyone. In fact, I have a very difficult time understanding how you conclude that other posters are NOT lauding the violence employed against words.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I never said that. I said that if you act a certain way you have to expect others to reach conclusions that fit the behaviour. If you don't want those conclusions to be reached, you should change the behaviour.

I don't know why this is so difficult for you to understand.

I find it a bit difficult, because my reading of Thermal is that they are not racist, do not express racist positions, and don't make racist arguments. In the Jogger thread, for example, Thermal has challenged some assumed speculative positions, and has frequently gotten down in the weeds on tangential lines... but they have also been pretty clearly on the side of "Those rednecks are murderers" since the beginning of the thread. There's been no attempt to defend or excuse their behavior in any way.

So this "oh you act like a racist and if you don't want people to conclude that you're a racist you should change your behavior" is indeed quite difficult to understand.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Behaviour has consequences.

Sure. Consequences like a 70-something old male getting killed by a punch from a 20-something young male. Consequences.

I don't think the "consequences" are appropriate, acceptable, or justified.

 

[Emily's Cat]

“Oh that ugly old building is gone? Good riddance. Hell, if it was arson, I’d like to shake the guy’s hand. Too bad he’ll go to jail if they catch him.”

“So sad the state we’ve sunk to, people like you approving of arson.”

“I don’t actually approve of arson.”

“Then explain your words where you clearly do!”

Cue 75 pages of willful misinterpretation.

Actually, it's the highlighted bit that implies approval of arson.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Here's a possibility: while he is opposed to racism, he also thinks that some people too easily jump to conclusions of racism, so he tends to make that argument.

I've seen Thermal make some pretty bad arguments in some of those threads, but his participation in them doesn't imply that he's racist.

That has been my observation and impression as well.

 

[Emily's Cat]

No one has called him a racist. You have completely failed to understand the point.

Belz, are you invested in this argument?

Nobody has said explicitly that phrase, but it has been pretty obviously implied. In a way that's hard to miss.

 

[mgidm86]

Not actually sure what you are saying, but seems a mix of tacitly pretending the old dude should not have been punched, while also saying he should have because for some reason you know he was a white supremacist.

Qhich is odd.

I have not seen the race of the victim mentioned in any news article.

Were there no witnesses that heard any of this?

All we know for sure is that two guys had a heated verbal exchange where one punched the other, causing his death. We know that the suspect is a black male. What else do we know?

So far we only have the word of the suspect for the racism aspect. But whether there was a racial term used or not changes nothing.

Unless the victim threatened him, which has not been claimed, this is an open and shut case.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Thanks. Similar issues on my end. My scull must be getting thick.

My neurologist said I have an unusually think skull. My mother said "I told you so".

 

[Emily's Cat]

Good stuff. Then work on a world where hate speech isn't tolerated and in fact is punished and the cops aren't racist so that people feel they can have recourse to non-violent ways to resolve situations.

This whole incident is a prime example of how systemic racism works against minorities and how many people don't see it.

Subject minorities to increased levels of provocation on a daily basis and tell them that the dominant culture values the provocation more than the harm done to them and that they better not react to it. When the minorities do inevitably react (as any group would to constant provocation) the narrative is then that the minorities are more violent (and the stats show it) and don't live up to the same standards as the dominant culture. Which is then used as an excuse for further racism and persecution. Which leads to increased reactions.

Observers like yourself only see the minorities 'overreacting' and not living up to your expectations. And that argument is logical in a given single instance but completely misses the greater context. But saying 'I don't care about the greater context, just don't punch people' might be a wonderful sentiment it is a completely privileged opinion which isn't going to change the situation and in fact only perpetuates the problems.

Funnily enough what MIGHT change the situation is every racist being punched to death every time they open their stupid mouths to insult a black man. They'd probably soon learn to stop it. But I think we would both agree that's probably a sub-optimal strategy too.

What MIGHT change the situation is females shanking every male who catcalls, leers, cops a feel, takes an up-skirt shot, assumes a right to touch their bodies, sexually assaults, sexually harasses, demeans a female as hysterical and overreacting, tells a female to calm down it's not that big a deal, and beats their wife. Maybe they'd learn to stop it.

Bit of a derail... but I again notice a pattern in many threads. When the topic is one of race, there is substantial support for the ethnic minority (including from me). When the topic is females, however, the issue is downplayed and considered to be exaggerated, and is met with "but it happens to males too".

One of these days, the black women are going to rise up, and it's gonna be ugly.

 

[Meadmaker]

I have not seen the race of the victim mentioned in any news article.

77 year old guy drives through Dunkin' Donuts drive through, complains about bad service, stops car, gets out, and calls the manager the N-word.


Could be a black guy, but.........I'm going with my gut on this one. I think it was a white guy.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Sounds like everyday life as a woman. Yet somehow we don't go round punching every man who makes a sexist comment.

Pretty much.

Of course, females also don't get the level of support shown for minorities, we mostly get told that we're overreacting and should just calm down...