Black and white thinking

[spooky3]

One thing that bothers me about some posts concerning the primary candidates is that many posts seem to speak of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. as "either - or" conditions. "He's a racist" or "he's not a racist"; "she's a sexist", or "she's not a sexist", etc. A comment may be purely sexist or racist, but a person rarely is. One result of this dichotomous portrayal is that some people get really bent out of shape when they believe someone is suggesting that they may be racist. In fact, like most human qualities, these things vary by degrees (and maybe in more complex ways). People can be a 7 on a 10 point scale, for example--very few people are truly racist or truly free of racism (etc.). Most of us are somewhat racist or sexist or ..., and may not be fully aware of it, and need to work on being better than that. Wish we could get past this tendency.

Just my 2 cents.

[Bucky]

1. Guess what....

[spooky3]

2. that's not helpful. Try addressing the merits of the points raised.

[EffieBlack]

3. I agree completely

Racism is a very virulent form of prejudice, combined with the ability to affect the lives of others. We are all prejudiced, we are not all racist.

Sadly, the term racism has taken on a generic meaning and many people seem to believe that there are two points on the spectrum: Gandhi/King on one end and Bull Connor/Grand Dragon on the other, with nothing in between. Thus, whenever anyone suggests that someone may be less than sensitive on the issue of race, often the immediate, knee-jerk response is "I'M NOT RACIST!!!" And that usually shuts down the entire conversation.

Interestingly, many people seem to be much more offended at the thought of being called a racist than at the offensive thing that is the topic of discussion. Many of the same people who point their finger at others and accuse them of calling them a racist are the first people to dismiss and defend comments by others that are deeply offensive.

It's really unfortunate, because these are issues that need to be discussed openly, but it's difficult to engage in any intelligent and productive dialogue when this is the case.