[Question] Post about the last time you thought or did something bigoted.

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Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

Jesse Jackson said:
There is nothing more painful for me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start to think about robbery and then look around and see it’s somebody white and feel relieved.
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Due to growing up in a bigoted society, we all think and do things that are informed by racism, sexism, or any other kind of bigotry that you can name. Society at large teaches us to be bigoted against marginalized groups and it takes a lot of work to overcome those impulses. That's why it's important to acknowledge when we do things that are informed by learned bigotry so that we can attempt to correct those patterns of thought and behavior within ourselves.

So let's talk about when we act in a manner that is bigoted. I did something racist within the last week that I'll post about later, but for now, I want to open it up to discussion. When did you last do something bigoted, and what was it?
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
This one is easy. It happened to me a couple weeks ago.

I was at the grocery store and the two Mexican ladies in front of me were buying all sorts of stuff - alcohol, a carton of cigarettes, chips, a magazine, etc. Nothing they bought had any value at all as a food group for sustaining life and health. Then they proceeded to separate everything into food and non-food, paid for the food with food stamps and the rest with $100 bills. Please note this was in the express lane and they had an entire cart of crap. I only had a couple things so I got to see it as they put everything into a brand new 2012 car and drive away. Here I sit with the few items I could afford and get into my 2001 POS with 187,000 miles on it. My thoughts immediately turned to GasBandit and how if he'd seen that I would have no answer to why welfare is a bad thing.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

I ogled a woman and had dirty thoughts about her, is that sexist and objectifying?

Oh wait, I have a better one. I used to object to my sisters' boyfriends because they are Caucasian and not Asian like us. I used to justify it by saying our society here tends to be much more xenophobic and prejudiced than people in the West are used to, and thus my sisters are opening themselves up to being discriminated against by association. But, really, it was mostly my own discomfort about them being a different race.

I got over it though, so now I don't object to them any more. Well, one of them I do, but that's because he's a moron.
 
Tress

Tress

"Hey guys, post something that could be sensitive, hurtful, or embarrassing about yourselves! As for me, I'll just make a vague promise to share my own story sometime in the future. It'll happen, totally."

Bad form, Charlie. Post your own story first.
 
Terrik

Terrik

Every time something stupid/annoying/insane/infuriating happens to me in China I have to fight against this.

Also, my two years experience working with Koreans colored my view of them so terribly that it took a long time to keep myself from automatically thinking they held certain prejudiced/bigoted views whenever I met one after that.
 
Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

I have snap bigoted judgments all the time. When I went to high school downtown, I'd routinely cross the street to avoid colored people that were homeless. I have a hard time thinking of really attractive co-workers as people first and sex objects second. When someone driving is courteous to me, a lot of times the thought enters my head "Thank god they were white about it", since that's something my mother said all the time whenever someone let us merge or signaled a turn or whatever. I stop myself from calling stuff gay all the time.

edit: also the hundreds of times I think "fucking white people" whenever the Republicans do something. My hatred of white people is well documented here on halforums.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Charlie Don't Surf said:
I have snap bigoted judgments all the time. When I went to high school downtown, I'd routinely cross the street to avoid colored people that were homeless. I have a hard time thinking of really attractive co-workers as people first and sex objects second. When someone driving is courteous to me, a lot of times the thought enters my head "Thank god they were white about it", since that's something my mother said all the time whenever someone let us merge or signaled a turn or whatever. I stop myself from calling stuff gay all the time. Sometimes I really want to call someone a smelly lady part!

edit: also the hundreds of times I think "fucking white people" whenever the Republicans do something. My hatred of white people is well documented here on halforums.
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... Your brain does seem to operate with an odd discriminatory filter, you know that?
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
bhamv3 said:
Huh... guess I'm lucky and sheltered then.
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All he's saying is that he has these thoughts. He acknowledges them and tries to rise above. You, yourself, said you have had these thoughts, except against white people. Same thing.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Dave said:
All he's saying is that he has these thoughts. He acknowledges them and tries to rise above. You, yourself, said you have had these thoughts, except against white people. Same thing.
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Yeah, but I was struck by the difference in extent and scope. I don't go around stopping myself from calling something gay in a derogatory way, because it doesn't occur to me to make these jokes. When someone does something, I don't think to myself "Oh that's so typically white/black/Asian/female/Jewish/American/etc" and then remember to stop myself from saying so out loud; such thoughts simply don't occur to me.

It's as if Charlie's a closeted racist who has to force himself not to be racist. It's weird to me.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Charlie Don't Surf said:
I was raised in the South and mostly around white, male, straight, cisgendered people until I graduated college
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Yeah, so I figured I was sheltered in comparison. I grew up in an affluent Maryland suburb near DC, with a nice mix of races and cultures, along with liberal attitudes towards social issues.
 
Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

bhamv3 said:
Yeah, so I figured I was sheltered in comparison. I grew up in an affluent Maryland suburb near DC, with a nice mix of races and cultures, along with liberal attitudes towards social issues.
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It is pretty easy to be raised on a steady diet of bigoted thoughts when you never really see minorities and also have hit privilege bingo
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I grew up (and live) in the south, so yeah, I grew up with bigoted relatives and downright racist distant relatives. Every night for my job, I have to go to the bank and drop off the night deposit, and whenever I have to work in one particular store, in one particularly scummy part of town, the bank there has only a walk up deposit box in the side alley. On a few occasions, I've been there dropping off the night deposit when a black guy would come up behind me and my first thought was "I hope this guy isn't a mugger." Of course, both times it was just a guy there to use the ATM.

People are going to give Charlie a hard time because this is a Charlie thread, but these are societal influences worth discussing. Of course, rationally, I do not believe all black people are muggers. My first instinct is to also say I would be a little wary of a certain type of white guy, which is true, but it's going to be a stronger thought if it's a black guy.

Of course, whenever I have to work in that little hick town, it makes me incredibly racist against white people, and that I feel less bad about. :megusta:
 
blotsfan

blotsfan

Sorry if I offend anyone here, but I regularly get pissed at non-American Asians. Whenever they take too long doing something or just show confusion at simple things, I get pissed at Asians as a whole. I know its wrong and that I'm sure I do just as many dumb things without the excuse of being from a foreign country, but they just bring out the worst in me.
 
Tress

Tress

I hate old people. Seriously. I make some of the rudest, nastiest comments about people around 75+ and up. I'll even make classically bigoted comments like "Oh, [that person] is okay. But all the others..." blah blah blah. I hate how slow they drive, I hate how racist they tend to be, and I hate their knee-jerk reactions to everything different or new in the world.

So yeah. I'm really not racist, but I'm definitely age-ist.
 
grub

grub

I live in Abbotsford Canada, which has probably 1/3 Indo-Canadian (immigrants from India) and the rest European mix. And many of the "brown people", as my Indo-Canadian landlord calls them, act very superior because in their old country they have money. Many of these people refuse to learn english or the rules and laws of this country. Those people piss me off. If they didn't want to integrate into Canadian society then why did they move here? I don't want a cultural "melting-pot" I just want them to learn the language of their new home and maybe the general rules of society. When called on it they usually say they are sorry and that they don't speak english when they were speaking it just fine earlier.
 
Krisken

Krisken

I'm more likely to be bigoted toward teenagers (the 16-19 age group) than anyone else, especially when shopping. I have to actively remind myself I was not any different than they were (and didn't like the attitudes of those who gave the type of looks I give to groups of kids). Ah well, we become our parents, eh?
 
Cajungal

Cajungal

Staff member
I find myself sometimes associating this sort of rude, entitled behavior with certain groups of black people when, really, I've encountered all types of people who behave that way. It's more about education and how they were raised, but you know, of you grow up hearing people talk in a certain way, it sticks. I've gotten better at catching myself over the years. It's a shame. And honestly, any guy at night scares me when I'm alone---unless he's wearing skinny jeans. Then I can at least outrun him.

Whites dudes who dress... I dont know what you call the style... But baggy clothes, flat-brim cap, chains... They scare the hell out of me for various personal reasons.
 
Cajungal

Cajungal

Staff member
I also find myself judging guys who wear camo when they're not hunting. You see a lot of that down here, like it's part of southern pride or something. Maybe I associate it with negative southern stereotypes, but it's really not fair.
 
TommiR

TommiR

Today I peed while standing up. I understand that, according to some feminist authorities, it is sexist and offensive to women.
 
tegid

tegid

-I'm scared of non-white people in the street at night all the time. Then again, I'm more or less equally scared of white people dressed a certain way. Either both of them are bigoted or none of them are.

-I met a few Chinese people over the summer when I was in the US and I picked some strong prejudice against the Chinese in general due to some things they did. It started wearing away when I got to know some of them better, but now it's fading veeeeeery slowly, and there's still a lot of it in my head. It's very easy to assume that it's cultural differences instead of prejudice. Last week someone was telling me about these very nice, welcoming and whatnot Chinese and I surprised myself thinking, even more saying (not directly) that they must be the exception. What the hell, man?

-The gypsies around here. They really have a different culture that I don't like, but I let it grow into full-blown racism. It's racism in theory and speech, it doesn't affect much how I see specific people. Not making much of an effort to fight this as of now, I must admit.

-I've been trying for a while not to use expression like 'Don't be gay!' or 'Don't be a girl' (which was the first alternative). I don't mean it derogatorily to gays or women I guess, but I am furthering the roles and prejudice associated to gay men and straight women when I say those things (i.e. 'they are weak').
 
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