Everything Old is New Again. Retro-Racism Rears It's Ugly Head. Reasonable People are HORRIFIED!
Fellow bigots and sympathizers craft weakly-reasoned apologia.
That would be the head line, but before I go back to that idea, let me do the set up. Yes, we live in a better world regarding matters of race, than the world I was born to, of 1962. Many more people seem to at least get it, that they don't "Get It," when it comes to issues of what it means to be victim of discrimination based on the narrow minded hateful bigotry of members of the dominant ethnographic group. Said simply, a lot more whites know, now, that they have no clue what it feels like to be on the receiving end of racist shit. That is progress.
Many more people in the USA than before seem to get the idea that 'In Theory,' if not in practice, that the differences between the so-called races is not a fact, biologically, at least (beyond melanin levels.) That is progress.
Oh but I still suspect, personally, that for way too many Americans, their breadth, depth and totality of understanding of issues concerning the racist form of bigotry (and ya there are many forms of bigotry) is limited to the following:
"It is not good, to be thought of as a racist."
And now we get to the retro-racists. What is a retro-racist? That is a hateful douchebag who understands that it is not good to be thought of as a racist, but embraces some seriously unreasonable racist bigoted beliefs about some group. (Merely, for example of such racist hate, I present the holding of vile racist beliefs against brown skinned people from south of the border who happen to speak some form of Spanish, or brown skinned people who speak Arabic or Farsi or some strange distant foreign language, as the two most popular flavors of racism, currently active.)
Now how does a thoroughly modern American retro-racist resolve the two incompatible realities; that it is bad to be seen as a racist, but that one embraces racist beliefs?
Here is how.
They change the definition. They pull out of their asses the asinine thought, belief, justification that:
"Well I have A REASON for how I feel. So I am not a racist. I am merely being rational."
Needless (but I will) to say, I instruct that the mere fact someone can articulate a claimed justification for racist thoughts does not mean the claimed justifications are at all reasonable. Nor does the claim of justification, under any understanding of the meanings of the words, make the hateful bigoted beliefs, any less racist. All throughout the history of our too-often hateful species, racists and all kinds of bigots have claimed justification. That does not make them less hateful people. It means, only, that they are capable of creating claims of justifications for their own hate.
So that is why I call them retro-racists. They seem to think they have figured out some clever new way to cloak themselves, however all they have done is reclaimed and resumed using one of the oldest tricks in the hatemongers' book.
Oh, and I should not skip mentioning the other kind of retro-racist. I call these the Neo-Archie Bunkers. You can peg these hate bags for their use of the (or some similar) phrase:
"Well that is how I think, and if that makes me a racist, so be it."
Before I close, let me offer my suggestion for at least one way of addressing a racist using the Archie Bunker trick. I suggest saying something like:
"Well. Hmmm. Ok. Well I applaud your honesty. But even if you are honest, you are, still, a racist douchebag. Now get the hell away from me, and stay the hell away from me. I do not want to risk being labeled as a sympathizer of or apologist for racism or racists."
After all, honesty deserves honesty.
That would be the head line, but before I go back to that idea, let me do the set up. Yes, we live in a better world regarding matters of race, than the world I was born to, of 1962. Many more people seem to at least get it, that they don't "Get It," when it comes to issues of what it means to be victim of discrimination based on the narrow minded hateful bigotry of members of the dominant ethnographic group. Said simply, a lot more whites know, now, that they have no clue what it feels like to be on the receiving end of racist shit. That is progress.
Many more people in the USA than before seem to get the idea that 'In Theory,' if not in practice, that the differences between the so-called races is not a fact, biologically, at least (beyond melanin levels.) That is progress.
Oh but I still suspect, personally, that for way too many Americans, their breadth, depth and totality of understanding of issues concerning the racist form of bigotry (and ya there are many forms of bigotry) is limited to the following:
"It is not good, to be thought of as a racist."
And now we get to the retro-racists. What is a retro-racist? That is a hateful douchebag who understands that it is not good to be thought of as a racist, but embraces some seriously unreasonable racist bigoted beliefs about some group. (Merely, for example of such racist hate, I present the holding of vile racist beliefs against brown skinned people from south of the border who happen to speak some form of Spanish, or brown skinned people who speak Arabic or Farsi or some strange distant foreign language, as the two most popular flavors of racism, currently active.)
Now how does a thoroughly modern American retro-racist resolve the two incompatible realities; that it is bad to be seen as a racist, but that one embraces racist beliefs?
Here is how.
They change the definition. They pull out of their asses the asinine thought, belief, justification that:
"Well I have A REASON for how I feel. So I am not a racist. I am merely being rational."
Needless (but I will) to say, I instruct that the mere fact someone can articulate a claimed justification for racist thoughts does not mean the claimed justifications are at all reasonable. Nor does the claim of justification, under any understanding of the meanings of the words, make the hateful bigoted beliefs, any less racist. All throughout the history of our too-often hateful species, racists and all kinds of bigots have claimed justification. That does not make them less hateful people. It means, only, that they are capable of creating claims of justifications for their own hate.
So that is why I call them retro-racists. They seem to think they have figured out some clever new way to cloak themselves, however all they have done is reclaimed and resumed using one of the oldest tricks in the hatemongers' book.
Oh, and I should not skip mentioning the other kind of retro-racist. I call these the Neo-Archie Bunkers. You can peg these hate bags for their use of the (or some similar) phrase:
"Well that is how I think, and if that makes me a racist, so be it."
Before I close, let me offer my suggestion for at least one way of addressing a racist using the Archie Bunker trick. I suggest saying something like:
"Well. Hmmm. Ok. Well I applaud your honesty. But even if you are honest, you are, still, a racist douchebag. Now get the hell away from me, and stay the hell away from me. I do not want to risk being labeled as a sympathizer of or apologist for racism or racists."
After all, honesty deserves honesty.
posted by Abstentus at 1:30 PM
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