Speaking truth to power

Good points! Fwiw, though I’ve never met a roma person, I thought that one was more “cultural” than “ethnic”, and also that it was a part of the culture (literally) to steal. That said, one should keep a solid eye on their belongings regardless of who else is around, so the “clutch” seems entirely unnecessary. Being aware is just good advice, though not making an obvious clutch is an “anti-racist” pattern that considers the feelings of the person that just stepped onto the bus, and I would strongly advocate for doing both actually.

One thing to add to your story though: you were willing to learn - but not everybody is. And if your racist parents, just to give an example, were to vote against women’s healthcare, then their choices will lead to literal deaths, possibly even of your very girlfriend, like if a period went wrong one day but then doctors did not know what they were allowed vs. not allowed to do and she died as a result. At least, this is happening in America. This is not theoretical - this is ACTUALLY happening.

Russia may be feeding into the existing prejudices in the Western World - by making memes, making TV shows (like Tucker Carlson’s, before he got booted out as a result of going too far), bribing politicians; and overall causing or at least inflaming or taking advantage of things like Brexit - but the people who make themselves into sheep and enact those wills… they bear some of the responsibility as well. As in, if they ever were fortunate to have your own experiences, then they would look back at how they voted decades ago and feel guilt. Assuming that they were still alive - which many of the anti-vaxxers are already not anymore. And they did not go down quietly: they took MANY others along with them too. They also prevented us from even so much as counting precisely how many there were, but from the excess death stats it was A LOT - in the USA we lost more people to covid than all the wars we’ve ever had combined (with the one exception of the immensely bloody civil war on our own soil, and even that number we’ve probably blown past by now?).

Plot twist: both sides are fascists.

But not equally.

I think a more effective comparison to get your point across is the fact that a base level Civic is making more power than a '67 Nova SS.

You’re literally just rewording the first sentence of my original comment dawg.

Yeah from the list the absolutely nuts, one-off, dragracing versions of cars from the 50s/60s made ~400hp. Which could be outdone by an option on the Camero last year. And if you wanted more it’s not difficult, just more money.

And raw HP numbers don’t take into account how much better modern cars drive or how much safer they are. I daily a car from the 80s and love it. But lack of ABS or traction control or airbags or a collapsible steering column does come to mind every once in awhile. Cars from the 50s/60s will have notably worse handling/cornering/etc.

Woosh

I agree that it’s a learned behaviour, but probably disagree on how it’s learned.

I consider it a natural form of learning. Animals that don’t have predators are known to lack any cautious behavior towards other species. We even caused the extinction of such a bird by introducing predators into their habitat. Children who start out as blank slates are like that. They don’t care until they accrue enough experience to start recognizing the differences.

We learn to distrust through experience. Whether this is directed by outside manipulation or self-realization, degrees of separation are gained over time through interactions or lack of. And the colour of one’s skin is an easily identifiable attribute that can give rise to the simple thought that we’re different. While to come to the conclusion that even if our skin colour is different, we are still the same on the inside is a lengthier thought process.

The bias you might fall to in this context is generalizing racists. I don’t know if you do, so this is a hypothetical presentation.

You don’t know how individuals have reached their conclusion to become racist and whether their personal experience has made them justified. You just assume that because racism is bad, they must be bad. Just like someone who becomes racist due to their bad experiences assumes everyone of a specific race is the same. It’s the same form of bias - to generalize a group based on your own experience with a few individuals.

All we can say in support of our theories is “all the representatives of a group that I’ve met have been like this”, but even so, on a planet of 8 billion people, all of those are only but a drop in a bucket.

And I wonder if you just can’t accept any other point of view, because it challenges you and threatens you in some way.

Put a chimp and a gorilla in a cage and see what happens. This is true all the way down to black ants and red ants.

Most species tend to stick together and tolerate other species. But when something happens, like food shortage or not enough space, they stop tolerating the other species in favor for their own.