Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
Your bar guy is a different thing. He had the whole pool of people he offended right there and could have said something. Like if he had said, "shit, look I grew up with a lot of hate and bias pushed on me, and I fight it, but I still got a long way to go, sorry, I'm working on it," would you have felt better about him? Was there anything he could say?
Closest I have to this is hearing people say "jew them down," or some other slur. There are two types of people who say that- people who know Jewish people but still say it. That is a hater, apologize all you want, you're a shit. But once (at Graceland of all places) a family from hill fuck West Virginia asked me if I was going to Jew a gift shop clerk down (we were in the middle of a weird, but until then, fun conversation). I looked at them, and realized there were likely no Jewish people in their lives. Somehow it seemed less bad to me, like they were repeating a phrase they had always heard and had little idea why it was wrong and stupid.
Winding back to your bar guy if he had grown up with the phrase, but had no idea the word was this evil hateful thing (which is a null set of people) maybe there is a bit more of a pass?
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I'm not sure what turn this conversation has taken based on what you wrote.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Your story is much more interesting, partly because it seems much more likely that your guy was telling the truth instead of posturing in contrition.
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I am offering the story to both of you as an example of what people will say in defense of themselves when it is clear that they are blatantly racist. Whether the story is interesting or different on the facts (as Hank points out) is beside my point.
White people who say the most blatantly racist shit will insist that they are not racist. And the reason why they do is because, for them (and all the white people who try to explain away racist shit by insisting that that isn't what they could have meant or they're a nice person or whatever), "racist" has a very specific meaning that doesn't actually exist in reality.
TM
