03-20-2024, 12:34 PM
(03-20-2024, 09:44 AM)CJD Wrote: If it were only used in an academic sense, I would agree with you 100%. The problem is the misuse by people who don't care about that and only use it to offend.
I had a black friend from high school who announced on Facebook that he was planning on unfriending all of his white friends because he can no longer trust that white people are good people following the 2016 election.
His white friends commented that this was racist and that he shouldn't paint with a broad brush.
His response was, "black people can't be racist."
That's a flagrant misuse of that statement, but it doesn't matter. I've seen similar comments in social media posts throughout the years and the response is predictable.
Interestingly enough, I "made the cut" to not be unfriended because I have a black wife. Not really relevant to the story, but I thought it was interesting.
My sister in law (my wife's sister) has a best friend who thinks interracial relationships between white and black people are absurd because white people are bad people. When I ask her how she can be friends with someone who would so blatantly disrespect her sister's (my wife's) marriage, she says, "oh well, she's not racist. Black people can't be racist. She just doesn't like white people."
I understand why some black people don't like white people. I think it's natural (if not unfortunate) to be distrusting of a race of people who, for generations, oppressed you and people that look like you.
What I don't like is when people who do not feel that way defend that thinking with a sentence that has no meaning other than to comfort them that they aren't friends with a racist person.
In our society, a "Racist person" is a smear that is reserved for only the worst people. It evokes images of klansmen and nazis. Pure filth who are irredeemable.
If a white person were friends with a klansman, but said "ah, they have this one bad quality, but other than that, they are a good person" we'd toss that person aside as a racist person as well for endorsing this racist's viewpoint by ignoring it.
But a prejudice person? That's just a person who has thoughts that differ from the mainstream due to their own personal experiences.
It's used as a cover for the same behavior that would be called racist if a white person did it.
It's intentionally divisive and, whether it has academic standing or not, does alienate a lot of people. I think it's harmful.
Admittedly, this is a personal issue for me.
And yes, I acknowledge that no matter what you do, a rational thought can be misused by ignorant people, but this particular one is so obvious in its potential for misuse that it would have been better if it never existed in the first place.
Perfectly stated and explained. What is sad to me is that anyone would actually need this explained to them. The "progressive" movement has done more damage to race relations in this country than any group in the past forty plus years. But they still see themselves as the good guys on this issue. It does not bode well for the future.
Sorry to hear about your personal situation. I have a white friend who is married to a Chinese woman (not of Chinese decent, literally moved here from China) and he has received snide comments about white men fetishizing Asian women, almost exclusively from people who are not white. My last girlfriend was Puerto Rican and got comments about her dating a colonizer. It's really sick what is going on right now, and it seems intentional.
