Conversation

Aella
@Aella_Girl
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/
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
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/
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
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
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
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.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
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/
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
If you’re buying into arguments why it’s ok to treat other people like shit today, then you probably would have bought into arguments why it’s okay to treat slaves like shit if you’d been born white a few hundred years ago. From the inside, it feels like it makes sense. 6/
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
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.
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Jan Kragt
@jgkragt
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
"I was raised evangelical Christian & went around calling gay people fags." reveals a horrible prejudice. "Evangelical Christians" both simply in America and around the world must number in the 100's of millions. Preoccupation with bias seems to increase accepted biases & hatred
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Mojave Zen
@Zenfucius
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Similar (tho overall less bad I think) upbringing here, & I remember thinking there was something wrong with me for not seeing what was wrong with gay people or pagans or atheists etc. It didn't feel right but I did think it was right and was warped in some horrible way.
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Bitcoin Bodhisattva
@Peter_Aus_BTC
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Well said! It's true the bigots of old didn't think they were bigots. They had justifications! The Nazis even had 'science' about it ffs! The new mob think they're special because they've got it sussed. But they're no different to their ideo-forebears.
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