If anything, racism breeds blindness...

[MrScorpio]

http://www.discussionist.com/101646772

It really does. It starts at childhood and can keep a person blind deep into adulthood. When someone belongs to the privileged group for which racism serves, it creates both an unwillingness to address the conditions from which they benefit and elicit feelings of being targeted whenever the subject is brought up, no matter how innocuously.

Not once did I ask them to take responsibility for the content of the racist cartoons that they said that they've enjoyed as a child. They personalized those cartoons all on their own.

Not once did I tell them that they being racist in their responses. Yet, they expressed offense at being called "racist," when the accusation never ever lodged against them.

Not once did ask them for anything. I only expected honest responses and I only received one, while the rest remained as blind as ever.

Yes, eventually I did get one of them to admit that he/she didn't care about the patently offensive content of classic cartoons like Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny. Even if this same person denied that the exchange was somewhat heated while they were busy hurling expletives my way.

But that's just another fine example of denial, is it not? Isn't blindness the form of denial that's taking place here?

Of course, it is.

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Like learned helplessness it's not good for the family or the community. nt

[MrScorpio]

2. I was wondering, do you think that I was being unfairly cruel to them?

Now, I know that they had no control over the content of cartoons that were made long before many of them were born. If they're white, they had no control over the white privilege that was handed to them at birth. Seeing how they were trained at an early age to accept and draw enjoyment from racist tropes, they really had no control over being influenced to adopt them.

The cartoons' purpose was to pretty much brainwash, not only impressionable minds of white children to accept white supremacy as a way of life, but to also instill a sense of inferiority into the impressionable minds of black children.

I had to keep shoving that shit in their faces in order to get them to see what was going on. Harsh perhaps, but was it too cruel of me to do that? I knew that I was going to elicit an immediate defensive response, but I was prepared to keep it up until one of them cracked.

I'm just wondering if I could have gotten them to face what they were seeing in another way and still get any of them to respond honestly.

[littlemissmartypants]

3. My adoptive father taught me that to see things means

S: significant
E: emotional
E: experience
If it doesn't make a unique impact, it won't be learned.
So, the answer is no. I think you did it with your heart in the right place.

[MrScorpio]

4. Wow. That's beautiful. Your adoptive father is a wise man

Thanks!

[Gothmog]

5. There are some amazing offensive Tom & Jerry cartoons

This thread is interesting

[MrScorpio]

6. What's very interesting about it is their inability to understand that they can be read

Last edited Fri Oct 3, 2014, 03:08 PM - Edit history (1)

It's common knowledge that they lack sympathy for people unlike themselves. Not to mention the paranoia that they demonstrate whenever they feel that something's being asked of them. Of course, I really didn't ask anything of them. I just wanted to demonstrate that they don't care.

However, the most entertaining thing about that thread is the way in which they go about rationalizing and excusing everything that's stereotypical and offensive about those cartoons. And note that not one of them had ever questioned whether or not if ever black people see ourselves as the images depicted us.

[littlemissmartypants]

7. And the last point is an excellent one. nt