DominicCobb said:
Rush, there comes a moment in life where you start to become more aware of the larger societal and systemic conflicts of the world, and how often they affect others (and perhaps not yourself). When faced with this kind of info, people can go too far in either direction - speaking out or shrugging it off. This is natural if unfortunate for nuanced discussion. The key is though to realize nuanced discussion on certain topics does exist if you’re willing to look hard and challenge your own views, whatever they may be.
The problem that you probably don’t realize is that terms like SJW and PC are used to generalize and discredit. Those who make sweeping allegations that these type of people refuse to have reasonable debates are no better themselves. The truth is that yes, a lot of people take things too far (especially on the internet), but you can’t discount a whole ideology just because the word “racism” is brought up, for instance. More often than not, these people have a very well thought out argument as to why such and such is problematic and it’s a lot more than just “waaah he’s a bigot meanie.” To lump everyone into a dismissive categorization like SJW is to essentially say that anyone who thinks things like racism and sexism are still a problem are ridiculous, which is of course as ridiculous a statement as anything else.
At the end of the day, in my mind, which is worse? Someone being cautious about a potentially offensive thing even if overly so? Or someone being actually offensive?
Trump is such a charged situation. For so many people he represents the epitome of everything wrong in the country, and not in the usual “we have a different ideology” way, but in a plainly moral way. And that’s because the guy is living, breathing scum, an example of a bigoted rich old white guy so perfect as to be a parody of itself. The truth is, the bigotry is right there for anyone looking. And for many that makes him completely unredeemable. And for others it doesn’t change a thing for them (and then of course there’s those who like it). Now obviously you have a right not to mind the man’s bigotry. But for many people they just cannot understand how anyone could brush that aside, especially when that bigotry and ignorance can directly affect them. I’m certainly one to preach tolerance, so I understand Trump supporters who overlooked the troubling aspects. But I also sympathize with those who could not. To dismiss those who are so passionately against him is just as bad to dismiss those who are rationally for him. Both have a perspective and a reason for what many on either side may consider to be their extreme opinions.
Now I haven’t watched those videos but just from what you quoted I’m worried about the rhetoric. Mentioning “violent protests” is a clear bit of false framing to villainize these people on the left, because the truth is most protesting is not violent at all, as has been abundantly obvious in this country in the last few months.
Bottom line is understanding the complexity of perspectives and opinions of people in the modern world. It’s tough when you’re in high school and people are just starting to tap into a feeling and don’t know the most rational way to express it yet. But the worst thing you can do is to dismiss someone’s perspective outright on either side of the aisle, just because it doesn’t conform to what you already believe is true about the world.
Well said. I’d add that Trump’s obvious bigotry is not merely a personal criticism, it’s a political one. He campaigned on overt bigotry–and he won because of his overt bigotry, not in spite of it. That’s unusual–we haven’t seen anyone quite like him since George Wallace. So separating the bigoted man from his policies (as people sometimes do discussing Richard Nixon, Woodrow Wilson, etc) is pretty much impossible. That makes political discussions difficult when your starting position is that white supremacy is too far out to take seriously, and I’m afraid that’s a reasonable starting point.
It also doesn’t help that your standard sensitive white person thinks of racism as a binary thing. Either you’re completely free of racism or you’re wearing a hood. So when someone says something is racist, sensitive white person immediately jumps to the hood imagery and either says “Oh noes I’m not associating with that” or “That is ridiculous, you are wrong, you SJW”. But most everyone else sees racism as Palmolive. You’re soaking in it. You’ve been soaking in it since birth, every one of us, even SJW’s. And it’s just a matter of how aware you are of it, rather than if you’ve managed to wash it all off, because you can’t. This dismissal of SJW’s just because of different definitions of racism means that the SJW’s are, through repetitive practice, easy to dismiss even when someone actually is wearing a hood.
