Conversation

The redefinition of the word ‘racist’ freaks me out. We went through centuries of rationalizing it any way we could to finally figure out that ‘discrimination based on race’ was a horrible thing regardless of justification. But redefinition is just another justification! 1/
42
1,633
Do you think the racists back in the day that went around enslaving people didn’t have justifications? That they were holding hands in their ships singing the “we are evil” song? No! They were like “this is good for them”. Literally, this is what they thought. 2/
6
569
And the only way we made this stop is by going no, your justifications aren’t valid. You personally thinking this is a good thing for whatever damn reason, no matter how compelling, isn’t cutting it. Treating people terribly based on their race is bad, full stop, no exceptions. 3
2
627
And fast forward to today, where somehow we’ve got enough people justifying racism it that they literally got the dictionary definition of racism changed to only apply to certain groups of people. What. The fuck.
7
760
No, I don’t care what the justifications were for racism back in the day, and I don’t care what the justifications are for it now. Discriminating against anyone on the basis of their race is horrible, I don’t care if they’re more powerful than you or if this is good for them. 5/
3
790
Replying to
I wonder how much of this comes from people being totally unable to empathize with evil. If you think evil is this other thing out there, done by monsters, something you’re never capable of, then you won’t guard against it in yourself - and this is exactly how atrocities happen.
11
1,075
I know this well myself. I was raised evangelical Christian and went around calling gay people fags. I know what it’s like to believe a terrible thing - and from the inside, it feels like exactly the way you feel right now. It’s comfortable, justified, it makes the most sense.
13
618
You should be just as wary and skeptical of yourself as you are of other people. You *are* other people.
21
942
Replying to and
In a thread about the evils of racism, you cite "white" in reference to the acceptability of shit treatment of slaves in the past. Whilst the involvement of white slave-drivers was but a moment in time in the history of enslavement which was perpetrated by many races on both 1/
1