The GOP is still morally corrupt, even if Discourse breaks

[inactive_user]

@Nesrie

The biggest difference between you and me, is I care more about the people affected by racism than I do about racists themselves.

I really hope you mistyped this somehow.

[rowe33]

Awww, that’d be a mistake! I’m pretty sure I started as a registered Republican, like all good Texan 18yos. Was probably the default selection in the Lone Star State.

[Nesrie]

@inactive_user

I really hope you mistyped this somehow.

Why? Because we spent the last few days talking about the labels that racists put on their targets? What labels are those that we discussed? How much time have we committed to talking about what the targets of racism can do while all the others are trying to convert the racists, trying to lure these family and friends and co-workers to some more acceptable view of the world. When did we talk about that?

[ArmandoPenblade]

Sorry, Kelly. Sometimes babies gotta get tossed out with bathwater.

[arrendek]

@Nesrie

it’s easier to act like using the word racist is somehow worst than experiencing racism when you don’t actually experience racism

White Fragility In The Workplace | Newsbroke (AJ+)

Also this, oh man.

Dear White People VIRAL VIDEO - Racism Insurance Coverage for White Privilege (2014) - Comedy HD

[inactive_user]

Yes you’re right, we all need to make sure to put RACISTS SHOULD STOP BEING RACIST BUT ALSO in front of all our P&R posts.

Or you could give the absolute fucking minimum benefit of the doubt to people posting here in good faith about ways to constructively effect anti-racist change in America. Either way, I guess.

[Nesrie]

Oh my god. You know what would be fun, is if this shit wasn’t actually real.

Yeah, I’m hearing No. 1. I am sure someone is going to tell me how completely wrong I am and what is actually being said is what Mr. Black Guy Insurance would convey.

edit: yep there it is, right above me.

[arrendek]

Yeah, I always feel weird even joking about how fucking stupid it gets with white people and the whole sensitivity to “the r word” thing. Just because black people really have to deal with it, on the regular.

For serious, let me know if you want me to delete my post with the videos. It’s funny to me but I could see how it could be just straight up offensive or stupid to you.

[Nesrie]

@arrendek

For serious, let me know if you want me to delete my post with the videos. It’s funny to me but I could see how it could be just straight up offensive or stupid to you.

No. Please don’t. It’s right on.

It’s truthful and funny. It’s exaggerating a real thing (it’s actually not that big of an exaggeration). And I think it might be happening right now even if it’s more fun for some to just piss on my different POV instead.

[tomchick]

Nesrie, you just told @inactive_user that he cares more about racists than the victims of racism. You’re really difficult to have a conversation with because you do this sort of thing routinely: ignore what people write and reply with some inflammatory and often unfounded accusation. It’s unfair to the people attempting to have discussions in good faith.

-Tom

[scottagibson]

@Sharpe

That’s because we continue to view “racism” as an on/off all or nothing, “you are a good person, no problems at all, purer than snow” versus “you are a bad person who cannot hold any office or any job or keep any relationship or friendship”, which is insane. We don’t treat any other form of bad or horrible human behavior that way: we treat murder much worse than assault, etc.

I understand what you’re saying here, but I don’t really grasp the consequence of this failure to discriminate degrees of racism. I mean, racism isn’t even a crime. There are no legal consequences for being a racist or saying racists things. The consequences are basically social, if they exist at all. So it isn’t like the difference between assault and murder.

[Nesrie]

@tomchick

Nesrie, you just told @Adam_B

Actually if you followed the conversation Tom that was said to Christien and of course you aren’t good at having this conversation in good faith. You want to tell me again how not racist Gman was?

I’m reading what they’re writing; what i am not doing is approaching it from the POV of a white man.

[tomchick]

@Nesrie

You want to tell me again how not racist Gman was?

Do you want to accuse me again of inviting a white supremacist to the forum? We can go 'round and 'round all you like, but the fact of the matter is you’re unfair to many of the people with whom you have conversations on this forum. It’s tedious and disruptive.

-Tom

[Nesrie]

@tomchick

Do you want to accuse me again of inviting a white supremacist to the forum? We can go 'round and 'round all you like, but the fact of the matter is you’re unfair to many of the people with whom you have conversations on this forum. It’s tedious and disruptive.

-Tom

You mean with Adam B. The one that posted a dozen Fuck You gifs? I don’t recall you getting involved in that.

I am not accusing you of anything. It’s what happened, but I don’t expect you to see that, not even now.

[Gordon_Cameron]

@scottagibson

The consequences are basically social, if they exist at all.

That is the frame of the discussion, at least as posed by Christien.

[ChristienMurawski]

@Nesrie

note: I am saying you, but I am really referencing people who have your position.

Let me start here. These are the same thing.

@Nesrie

I am not convinced that the people you all want to be swayed can be swayed, and you should not be presenting the idea that I have ever suggested we reach across the table to everyone. I am very clear about the lost causes.

I have made it very clear, Nesrie, that I took on your distinction in this regard. I agree with you on the point that in winning an election, we need to reach across the table (as you put it) to those who can be swayed. Who choose not to vote for whatever reason. Or might be wavering. I agree.

But I simply don’t believe in lost causes, because I don’t think that helps. If we want to make changes, we have to find the lost causes. Writing them off isn’t going to help. They’re not like tax deductions. They don’t just disappear. They continue to cause harm. So how do we deal with that.

Especially when they are in our families.

Cutting off a family member isn’t like cutting off a dead tree branch. It is more like severing a nerve. You don’t know what other parts are going to be affected. That’s just reality. So that is why I’m trying to discuss this.

Simply accusing me of caring more about the racists rather than those accused of racism misses my larger point. If I sever those relationships, what does that mean down the road? I’m trying to think two years down the road. Ten years down the road. The liberal and conservative parts of our family do not talk to each other, except for me. I have to be the go-between. Where has that gotten us? We have a racist in the White House.

@Nesrie

And i think consequences for when you, and others who think like you, wind up being wrong is completely left for people like me to deal with.

Actually, we all have to deal with it. In myriad ways. I’m not so presumptuous as to think what I have to deal with is what you have to deal with. I understand that there is a weight of pain that I do not understand. That is why I’m proposing these points.

So what do we do. How do we change it?

-xtien

[Nesrie]

@ChristienMurawski

Simply accusing me of caring more about the racists rather than those accused of racism misses my larger point. If I sever those relationships, what does that mean down the road?

I would never ask you to severe the links to your family. You have a choice to confront racism or not. A lot of us don’t. And sometimes hearing that point of view isn’t pretty, it isn’t nice, and it’s hard for both parties.

But…

Tom doesn’t approve of me participating in this conversation, so I guess I am done.

[DaveLong]

When someone in my family starts saying stupid shit, and racist stuff is stupid shit, I call them on it. It doesn’t always end in their agreement with me, but a lot of times what they were just talking about is something they know nothing about and they need to hear that. If you can’t tell your family real talk, who can you tell it to then?

You don’t have to cut them off or whatever, just be honest. Letting them bully you into feeling like you have to tiptoe around them isn’t helping anyone except them to be that much more racist (or whatever dumb thing they choose) later on. I expect my family to do the same if I say or do stupid shit too.

Communicate. Expect disagreement. We’re all different.

[ChristienMurawski]

@Nesrie

Tom doesn’t approve of me participating in this conversation, so I guess I am done.

Please don’t do that.

-xtien

[ChristienMurawski]

@DaveLong

When someone in my family starts saying stupid shit, and racist stuff is stupid shit, I call them on it.

The problem here is this. My folks were out here visiting, and we got into it in real time. There was a back and forth that was useful, in some ways. I don’t think it helped a great deal, but we could go back and forth and read body language and interrupt and nod and then I could make them a meal.

Right now I barely talk to them. They live across the country and it’s all online. I cannot call my mom out on Facebook when she posts some stupid meme about how she is still behind Trump. She’d just post a Bible verse about how we should all be peaceful and get along. Which means…agree with her.

So it becomes Guy Fieri’s Familial Flame Wars and it’s a net negative.

@DaveLong

Communicate. Expect disagreement. We’re all different.

You’re probably right. My problem is that I just don’t want to engage anymore. It’s exhausting. Which is part of Trump’s strategy, I realize that. But not communicating with my family isn’t helping. It’s just easier.

So I think you hit the core of the problem.

-xtien