It's possible to do this even while caring about the subjects of your bigotry, in no small part because we're raised in a racist society and, especially when we're younger, we don't always recognise the dog whistles for what they are; we just know using them helps us fit in.
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In this moral-cultural context, therefore, being told that intention matters less than impact? It's not intuitive. It literally doesn't parse, because if TRYING to be nice doesn't matter, then what's the point of anything? Never mind that ignoring impact leads to toxicity.
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All of which is a way of saying: I understand *why* so many Nice White Ladies get het up and defensive and cry crocodile tears about how they've been WOUNDED TO THE CORE when told that a thing they said or did was racist. But understanding something doesn't excuse it.
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Accept that you're going to screw up sometimes, despite your best intentions. Accept that it won't always feel good to be told you've screwed up, but that, if the screw-up hurt someone, your feeling bad about it doesn't outweigh their hurt and shouldn't be their problem.
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Here's the thing: nobody else can do your thinking for you. You can ask for people to provide links and triple-source their arguments about Why The Thing Was Racist 'till you're blue in the face, but if you're not prepared to actually THINK about the material, it's pointless.
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I know the vast majority of us went through secondary education systems that tended to prize rote learning over critical thought, but the world isn't school, and sooner or later, you need to know how to admit fault without a graded paper in front of you.
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If you're a Nice White Lady who has conniptions when told that a thing you said or did was racist because Niceness is a core part of your identity, consider that a *genuinely* nice person would care about having hurt someone else. Someone who only *performs* niceness would not.
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Even if you can't see how what you did or said was hurtful in the moment, recognise that the other person is indeed hurt apologise for it, then SIT DOWN AND THINK ABOUT IT PROPERLY. And unless you truly don't care about hurting people/niceness? Don't do the thing again anyway.
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Thanks for this; I've seen it but never understood just how it all fitted together before - only knew it as "being called racist is somehow worse to people than actually being racist" and this explains a lot.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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