Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
When a politician is shamed and makes a public statement like that, I don't think it's aimed at absolution or persuasion. It's more a form of circling the wagons and saving face. Other possible responses are real introspection and doubling down on racism. If you say what she said, it's a path well trodden, and the attention goes elsewhere because what else is there to say?
That's not say that it's disingenuous. As you're saying, it's very common for people to do racist shit and then to profess that that's not really what they think. As a PR strategy, it works because so many people have heard it and think it. I just don't think you come any closer to understanding why people think that in this context.
When a human being in a bar says the same sort of thing, it seems less rote and calculated, so possibly more interesting if one is really trying to understand the way people actually think, although possibly the same thing is going on -- someone caught in a shameful act has the urge to defend his basic goodness (because most people want to be seen as good, and think they are good) by saying what a good person would say in that situation -- racist is bad, and they are good, so therefore they are not racist.
Who are they trying to convince? Maybe foremost themselves?
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Let me take a different tack, because I think you're hearing me, but not
hearing me.
Why is it that the attention goes elsewhere with her response (i.e., complete denial of any racism at all) and when someone gets caught cheating or doing drugs or whatever, the response is admission, requests for forgiveness, and rehab? There is significance in that distinction.
The difference between why there are two different approaches is what is interesting to me. The fact that a plain denial in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is enough to smooth this over
is what is amazing to me. And since I find the same behavior when the person
isn't a public figure, I'm trying to understand why that is. I think you're discounting public figures for some reason when they use the exact same mechanism to get out from under evidence of racism as non-public figures. I think a reasonable answer is the good-bad binary alternate reality that white people inhabit when it comes to race.
But the real question is, why is it that white people cannot accept the fact that (i) there are levels/degrees of racism and (ii) they actually carry it. I don't get it. I understand that people don't want to be seen as a bad person, so they use every trick in the book to explain how they are good. Is it guilt? Is it pure denial? Is it delusion? What is it about racism that makes it so that white people cannot face it in themselves even a little bit?
TM
