Quote:
Originally Posted by Ari
I see this a lot with racism. ‘Blacks are violent thug animals... but I dont want to lynch them so Im not a racist’. The idea that saying blacks are inherently more violent is seen as a neutral fact and not racism.
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I see and hear an awful lot of that. And that's just it; someone can spend hours ranting about how "blacks" are stupid, lazy, violent, untrustworthy, and sex-crazed; how "queers" are trying to seduce and corrupt our children, and destroy "traditional marriage"; how women are inherently less intelligent and less rational than men -- and then act as if they're
genuinely shocked and appalled if you call such behavior racist, homophobic, or sexist. And the thing is, they probably sincerely believe that they
aren't being racist, homophobic, misogynistic, or otherwise bigoted when they say such things. In their minds, they're simply being "honest."
One should never underestimate the human capacity to believe that what we
want to be true
is true.
Another good example is how a huge percentage of [White] Southerners (and to be fair, Whites in much of the rest of the country) are
absolutely convinced that slavery was
a.) an almost entirely benign institution, and
b.) that it had nothing to do with the U.S. Civil War.
I don't know how many times I've had even intelligent, well-educated people
insist to me that slavery was a benign institution, that slaves were far better off here than they'd have been if they'd "stayed in Africa" (as if they'd been given a choice), and that the modern-day descendants of slaves should be
grateful that their ancestors were brought to this country.
Similarly, it's taken as an article of faith by a huge number of people that slavery had little or nothing to do with the American Civil War. It doesn't matter that it's trivially simple to prove that this is not true, nor that there are plenty of contemporary documents which forthrightly state that the "slavery issue" was one of the principle reasons for the Southern States' secession from the Union. As far as the faithful are concerned, slavery had little or nothing to do with the Civil War, and
nothing will convince them otherwise.
People don't want to believe their ancestors did bad things, thus they convince themselves that slavery was a benign institution and that it had nothing to do with the
War of Northern Aggression Civil War.
Similarly, people don't want to believe that
they are bigots, so they convince themselves that when they do and say racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. things -- they're just being
honest, not bigoted.
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Yes, a lot of bigotry comes from people who sincerely believe that they're simply being honest, not bigoted.
On the other hand, there are some who are perfectly aware that they're saying vile things -- and they
don't care. I see an awful lot of that sort of thing on Facebook and other such sites. There are a substantial number of people who will say all sorts of vile, reprehensible things -- like calling for the execution of homosexuals, for example, or the imprisonment of all "Liberals" -- and then, if called on it, will say something along the lines of "See? That's the problem with you Libs; you can't take a joke!".
I don't think they're joking at all; I suspect that they're just trying to keep from being banned by
pretending that they're only joking. Oh, sure, if push came to shove, they might not want to go
quite so far as to round up and execute all homosexuals or imprison all Liberals -- but they're fantasizing about it, and they find the idea appealing.