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[Folly]

I'd just like to point out that accepting people who choose to come and claim sanctuary is very different from facilitating people who are forced to come in massive numbers created due to the administration choosing to shut down normal immigration processing routines and accumulating a backlog of migrants far beyond what they have resources to accommodate.

Donald Trump has very much created a false equivalence here, in addition to using human refugees as political pawns and threatening to unleash what he considers to be violent criminals upon the US population. From every angle, this line of thinking is a shitshow.

[Karnewarrior]

I just think it's better for everyone if he tries. The immigrants get to escape the abuses of ICE, the sanctuary cities get political capital with their bases by doing a Good Deed^tm, and Donald Trump looks like a fucking idiot when the immigrants don't immediately turn around and start shanking people (not that anyone who pays attention to that is a fan of his anyway).

People with big egos like him are easily manipulated by jibes and dares - if the Dems were any good at the game he'd be their pawn by now.

[Iduno]

and Donald Trump looks like a fucking idiot when the immigrants don't immediately turn around and start shanking people (not that anyone who pays attention to that is a fan of his anyway).

Right. I forsee attacks by fascists, then pointing at the increased crime as "proof" that the immigrants are all violent and need to be shipped off.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

While I have no doubt there will be a convenient murder of a suburban lily-white family by a mentally ill immigrant if Trump actually tries to play this out, this sort of thing really exposes how much the right lacks in theory of mind. They genuinely think everybody else has the secret racist fantasies that they have, and just choose to hide it with different masks. This is part of why they hate white leftists so much, since they're convinced it's just an angle like their "personal responsibility" and "keeping predators off our streets" talk but can't figure out what exactly the deal is, or else think it's just a really stupid strategy.

This is also why they obsess over the level of racism held by those who aren't white, since they similarly believe that everybody from other races also think like them but merely lack the ability to engage in mass violence against white people.

[nenjin]

I mean, I think there is some truth to the belief. Everyone is racist. We only understand race here in America in our own context. But I find racism in Europe, or racism between two groups in another country like Sudan, to at least contextualize American racism.

What I really like though is when they try to make distinctions about racism. For example, when these guys I was working with were going off about n***ers, and I was like "Hey, that's not nice/fair/what have you." Their reply was "Oh, only some black people are n***ers. Not all black people. Just the shittiest ones." Nevermind the fact they'd call Obama "that n***er president."

And that seemed pretty obviously contradictory and hypocritical at the time. But then a few years later I had to notice that there were plenty of black people making this distinction too. "Oh well there's black people, and then there's n***ers."

So while I don't agree with them that "everyone secretly holds my brand of racism but just can't admit it", I can't help but agree that everyone is racist on some level, even to people within their own demographic. People may not act on that racism, they may not even hold strong beliefs about it. But everyone has preconceived notions about other people outside their specific in-group.

Put another way, if you continually winnowed down the amount of people an individual was exposed to or had to work with or share a society with until you'd reduce their circle of exposure to like, their immediately family and neighbors a block away.....people will find a reason to hate someone else for any differences given a long enough time line. If it's not their race, their color, their creed or their actions.....it will come down to simple resource greed if all other things are eliminated. I think it's only when people's survival is mutually shared between each other that you manage to transcend these barriers to some degree. Example: a white guy and a black guy down south may hate each other's politics and skin color and history....but if both need the other for their businesses to work, say the white guy rebuilds engines while the black guy sells him the materials he needs to do it, they'll set aside their racist tendencies toward each other because the cost of being racist is too high.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Except that's not true. People keep using scenarios like that as a proof for "why capitalism ended segregation" which is completely false and counterhistorical bullshit. The hardcore capitalists of the white South were synonymous with the hardcore segregationists, AuH2O's later quibbles beside. They were more than happy to lose the potential profit of a racially harmonious society in exchange for the alternative profit of exploiting black people and white hysteria to the maximum possible extent.

Humans are not resource calculators. Do you think Hitler really gave a damn about the economic realities of the Generalplan Ost? Fuck no! It doesn't even matter if Generalplan Ost or segregation or anything else held through racism are profitable or unprofitable. That's not the point. To paraphrase Orwell, Hitler promised a people bored to death of recovery an alternative of adventure and death, and an entire section of Germany just lept for it like starving dogs.

We live in an era where belief has been "disproven", and that perspective is just neoliberalism overdose bullshit. We must relearn the power of belief, the world makes no sense without it. What are martyrs and the self-sacrificing if hate between people "just find a reason to hate each other"? What are those who are fueled by an ideology instead of being sexually aroused by the stock market?

I refuse this conception of the human species. It's a seductively convenient viewpoint and nothing more.

[MrRoboto75]

Example: a white guy and a black guy down south may hate each other's politics and skin color and history....but if both need the other for their businesses to work, say the white guy rebuilds engines while the black guy sells him the materials he needs to do it, they'll set aside their racist tendencies toward each other because the cost of being racist is too high.

But in reality some cake bakers just don't bake cakes for gay people.

[Teneb]

There is a difference between Racism and ethnic prejudice. Racism, and note that I am capitalizing the word, is an ideology created in the late 17th / early 18th century to justify and enable the domination of non-Whites by Whites. So what does that mean? It means that you can't be Racist against Whites (but you damn sure can be incredibly prejudiced against Whites, and I hope no one needs to be reminded that prejudice is a BAD THING), but non-Whites can still be Racist.

And when it comes to any region colonized or otherwise exploited by Europe, plus Europe itself of course, society is inherently Racist. We can, and should, however attempt to reject said Racism because that's the only way the status quo can be changed.


And yeah, people are more than willing to sacrifice their profit or even survival if it means pissing on a group they are prejudiced against.

[Dunamisdeos]

I mean, I think Nenjin is right, but it doesn't really have significant bearing on this subject.

Cake guy would undoubtedly make cakes for gay people if the choice was between making that cake or, say, starving. Civil-War era plantation owners would undoubtedly have started paying black people for work if there was somehow a magical utter lack of alternatives for them to live/profit. Those people, however, had other, immediate sources of income, and therefore are able to indulge themselves. Hypothetical engine guy only pays the black guy for his parts because he can't get them from somewhere else.

Doesn't mean racism isn't a motivating factor in and of itself, just that it's unlikely a person will literally choose death/destitution to outwardly maintain it.

[Trekkin]

Doesn't mean racism isn't a motivating factor in and of itself, just that it's unlikely a person will literally choose death/destitution to outwardly maintain it.

No, but it's quite likely that they'll say they will, because that's how these echo chambers work: nobody wants to tell everybody else to calm down, so everyone tells everyone else how it's even worse than they think and we need even more drastic action even sooner or the consequences will be even worse and everyone keeps shouting urgent demands into the void until it reaches someone stupid enough to actually "do something about it!!!1!" and then we have yet another mass shooting by yet another walking condom advert and then all the racists send thoughts and pious bullshit until we do it all over again, and eventually they're all collectively choosing to live in a hellscape of their own devising because it's worse for everyone else.

[nenjin]

Except that's not true. People keep using scenarios like that as a proof for "why capitalism ended segregation" which is completely false and counterhistorical bullshit. The hardcore capitalists of the white South were synonymous with the hardcore segregationists, AuH2O's later quibbles beside. They were more than happy to lose the potential profit of a racially harmonious society in exchange for the alternative profit of exploiting black people and white hysteria to the maximum possible extent.

True, but they were dealing with uneducated, non English speaking slaves who could only offer their manual labor as a possible benefit to them. That is not the reality today where they own businesses, have education, goods, skills and legitimacy in society. So the equation has to change. We know there's still hardcore segregationists who won't do business with black people, gays, etc...Do they represent most people with a racial hangup? No, I don't think they do. From personal experience hanging out with good ol boys who can't talk about black people or foreigners without contempt slipping in to their voice....I've watched them have to kiss ass to Mexicans, Black Guys, Iraqis, because they're the ones holding the money, and for the moment, they're business partners first, not white second. (Although a close second sometimes.)

That is progress, in my book. Progress based on the necessity of living in the modern world. Trade is a foundation of diplomacy. Mutual need keeps the peace as best it can, until:

We must relearn the power of belief, the world makes no sense without it. What are martyrs and the self-sacrificing if hate between people "just find a reason to hate each other"? What are those who are fueled by an ideology instead of being sexually aroused by the stock market?

Some bastard who can't shut up about Allah, Jesus, Anarchism or whatever they believe, has to shatter the peace. I think people get the power of belief today. You can't have grown up in the last 20 years and not have an awareness of what martyrdom means. If it's not terrorists willing to blow themselves up for a cause, it's school shooters ready to die as long as they can take a few people with them.

The challenge is not to get swept up in the same obsession with "this" being the momentous time. That this is the year the race war starts, or this is the start of the apocalypse, or this is the start of the great revolution where blah blah blah.

a people bored to death of recovery an alternative of adventure and death, and an entire [country] just lept for it like starving dogs.

If you consider the US' struggle with racial issues and political issues in general....I seem to recall you've been in the "all out war is the only solution" camp for like the last year. Have you considered you're playing into the same lust for death and adventure?

[Egan_BW]

Death and adventure are all good and fun until you're dead.

[nenjin]

Here's my Kumbaya Moment.

"Nobody smells chicken and thinks racism."

[Max™]

We live in an era where belief has been "disproven", and that perspective is just neoliberalism overdose bullshit. We must relearn the power of belief, the world makes no sense without it.

As someone with no beliefs, I must object strenuously, the world makes sense just fine without them.

A belief is something you hold to be true, I fail to see what positive outcome there is from replacing honest doubt with any level of belief, and we're in no way a less credulous or more faithless society than we have been. I hate the idea that people actually believe that stupid turdburgler in office but he only lost to Hillary by a little under 3 million votes, so some portion of the literally millions of stupid fuckers who voted for him actually believe shit he says... and yes, if anyone still supports him at this point, they're a stupid fucker and should accept their role as a comic book villain because that's the best they're going to do.

[SalmonGod]

We live in an era where belief has been "disproven", and that perspective is just neoliberalism overdose bullshit. We must relearn the power of belief, the world makes no sense without it.

As someone with no beliefs, I must object strenuously, the world makes sense just fine without them.

A belief is something you hold to be true, I fail to see what positive outcome there is from replacing honest doubt with any level of belief, and we're in no way a less credulous or more faithless society than we have been. I hate the idea that people actually believe that stupid turdburgler in office but he only lost to Hillary by a little under 3 million votes, so some portion of the literally millions of stupid fuckers who voted for him actually believe shit he says... and yes, if anyone still supports him at this point, they're a stupid fucker and should accept their role as a comic book villain because that's the best they're going to do.

I think many, perhaps even a majority, and certainly the most influential of Trump's supporters actually don't believe shit he says.

Alt-Right Playbook: The Card Says Moops