Where in my post did I say I thought he might be right?
Unlike you, I don’t tend to keep score of who is racist today and who isn’t, and what they have or haven’t said. I tend to value my mental space and mood quite highly, and ruthlessly filter out what the vast majority of news outlets and people say, as, sadly, it tends to be idiots that get the most attention.
edit: rereading that, it sounds far harsher than I intended, so apologies. Basically, I think you get heavily influenced by what you pay attention to, and i choose not to pay attention to people like this. Their life experiences and world views tend to be, from experience, very far fro my own, so much so that trying to establish commonality for the sake of it strikes me as too much effort, so , NO, I hadn’t heard about this guy before today, and in a week I’ll have forgotten about him.
For the record, I think, based on the article you linked, that he, probably, is an idiot. No smoke without fire after all.
I don’t wish to delve into the last 10 years of his utterances to in/validate that lightly formed opinion.
I was pointing out that the Mail article by itself shows that what you said Mr Walking Tumour said, he didn’t actually say.
You are NEVER going to talk sense into any of the extremists of any group if you wilfully misquote them.
Yeah that’s what I am leaning towards, plus the following:
people are very willing to believe the worst interpretation of what others are saying.
I’m not saying that makes the person or people in question innocent, but a basic level of discourse demands you address what is said, without making things up.
Now, you’re free to interpret things that way, but based off the tweet you chose to link, that isn’t what he said.
And going down the rabbit hole of “what he really meant was…” is pretty poor, even if, sometimes, that is actually true!
And, devil’s advocate, one could take a rather different point of view relating to certain comments.
For example, regarding what the mirror says he said, about the issue of consent.
You see it as victim blaming, I could easily make the argument that it is asking people to be a bit more careful and take precautions and responsibility for themselves.
If you are a woman AND you wear very revealing clothing AND you go out and get drunk AND yoou go to some guys house AND you say you’re up for sex AND you get naked AND then change your mind, well you are in a bad situation there.
Does that mean you should be raped, or that you were “asking for it?”
No ofcourse not, but it does show that you don’t go from being at home in the afternoon to magically being in some strangers bedroom naked and drunk.
There are many steps along the way, and asking people to exercise some caution at each step should be basic common sense.
I’m a man, and I am very very careful about any displays of wealth, and I am very aware of my surrounding. Not because I’m worried about being raped, or even robbed, but because it’s a simple precautionary measure, and simple good practice.
And only once have I ever felt in danger, in a somewhat sleazy area of Berlin one time, because I recognized that my group was being scoped out by a group of guys, so I took the appropriate action.
Nothing dramatic, all I did was cross the street and change directions, and lock eyes with them.
That showed them I knew what the score was (so not an “easy” or unaware victim) and it made it logistically challenging to come after us (they’d have had to also cross the street and come after us.)
Now does this in any way mean my rights to walk down the street doesn’t exist?
No ofcourse not, but if I had carried on, and been robbed, no one would blame me as a victim, but I’d rather have the minor inconvenience of crossing the street and changing direction, as opposed to the major inconvenience of being robbed.
Now the real problem is some people actually ARE blaming the victim, which is a very fine line to walk.
If I had walked past that group of guys who were giving every signal of looking for trouble, then yeah part of the blame would be on me for not being aware. That wouldn’t excuse their actions, which I think is what “victim blamers” are usually trying to do.
edit: if I ever have a daughter, you can be very very sure I’ll be telling her that it’s not a great idea to get half naked in a stranger’s flat unless you actually want to get fully naked and bump uglies.
edit: tangentially related to the idea of how you are influenced, I am reading this book right now:
https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits
and in it, the author writes, that
Whenever you face a problem repeatedly, your brain begins to automate the process of solving it. Your habits are just a series of automatic solutions that solve the problems and stresses you face regularly. As behavioral scientist Jason Hreha writes, “Habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.”
Clear, James. Atomic Habits (p. 45). Random House. Kindle Edition.
and
There is no longer a need to analyze every angle of a situation. Your brain skips the process of trial and error and creates a mental rule: if this, then that. These cognitive scripts can be followed automatically whenever the situation is appropriate. Now, whenever you feel stressed, you get the itch to run. As soon as you walk in the door from work, you grab the video game controller. A choice that once required effort is now automatic. A habit has been created.
Clear, James. Atomic Habits (pp. 45-46). Random House. Kindle Edition.
if this, then that.
jumped off the page. I’m reading that to mean that racists etc arrive at being racists through repeated habits that form their identity.
It gives me hope that if their identity can be challenged, the behaviour can be too.
Colour me hopelessly optimistic.
Interesting book by the way, hasn’t yet said anything I hadn’t heard before, but is serving as a useful way to consolidate the information picked up from various sources.
I think I’ve digressed too far, so I’ll end this edit now.
