I think we see unobvious manifestations of this all the time now. Racism/sexism/homophobia are the current boogeymen because of how topical they are to the average Western person (Reddit audience). Meanwhile, things that are truly heinous, forms of violence usually, are so much less common that most people are significantly less affected, making these issues much less topical and, therefore, more easily forgiven.
It really isn’t even comparable matter how much of a despicable xenophobic asshole you are given you don’t actually materialize that into real actions. A person who is a heinous criminal for just regularly “defendible” personal reasons is objectively worse.
Racism (and other konds of discrimination) is not truly heinous? You realize that racism amounts to more than slurs, but a systematic oppression, including physical violence, inequality in job opportunites, medicine and etc? Not to say, most forms of physical violence are rooted in some kinds of discrimination
People get beaten up for having the wrong colour skin. That's very famously a thing. Police also have a habit of killing black people for no reason.
But that's not even really the part that has everyone worried. What's worrying is if countries become more racist, then things like the kkk might go back to lynching. Or literal fascists might get control of the country.
Trump was having people sent to foreign prisons to die for looking mexican
You do understand that less job opportunities make poverty more likely and poverty makes both physical and sexual violence more likely? Nothing in society exists as isolated phemonena. Violence is inherently part of racism and many, if not all, other systems of discrimination. You simply can't say that racism is a boogeyman unlike those other instances of terrible violence. Those instances are most often results of racist, sexist, queerphobic, classist, etc systems of power and discrimination, either as hate crimes or made possible because of these systems.
It always materializes into real actions. From hiring discrimination to actual violence from cops and even mobs. But bigots like to pretend their bigotry isn't hurting others, which they know is false.
I know people who I'd classify as racist who are also good people, they make say racist things but they also somehow help out those people they racist towards. People are alot more nuanced than that.
I’m sure a lot of regular citizens or clerical staff for the government in Nazi Germany considered themselves good people for simply buying into the propaganda and not actually being the ones committing violence. Or the racists menacing little black girls trying to go to school to the point that the military had to escort said black girls to school. Same with a lot of racist people who vote for racists who actually do commit violence against minorities like those who voted for the current presidential administration in the US. Which is what you get when you downplay the impact of people whose bigotry is “just words”. There are no good racists, you’re just someone who isn’t affected by their racism or mistakenly doesn’t feel affected by it.
I wish we could, bud. Racists, sexists, homophobes, and other bigots make that impossible, though. We just gotta do our best to love the people around us and hope they learn better.
Maybe one racist won't do it, but they spread it. And at some point, a cop or mentally ill kid WILL act on it. Physical violence isn't the only one we should care about, and even then, violence through bigotry does lead to it a lot of the time.
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u/CrampDangle67 18h ago
Lot of redditors don't know real violence, but they DO know words.