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[RedKing]

It's really hard overall.

It's not hard by itself, we've just made it hard.

Treating people with respect and dignity and showing them why they're wrong proves more than condemning them for saying the wrong word.

Take a racist man with you to an african-american household and make him live there for a week, I don't think he'll be racist when he returns.

He'll be more racist and say he now has practical experience to "justify" this.
The problem is they don't want to learn; they "know how it really works."

^^^
This. Or, they'll treat that experience as an aberration. As in the oft-heard phrase, "There's black people and then there's n------s". Read: "Black people is anybody I know personally, but all the rest are worthless." Also leads to the corollary, "Some of my best friends are black, but <insert racist screed here>."

A week does not a bigot unmake. Especially if they've been years and decades in the making.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No, Lysabild has a point. For example, the reason that pro-segregation advocates in the 1950's US fought so hard against desegregation wasn't just because they were racists, it was also because they realized on some level that if racial inclusiveness became part of society, most people would quickly abandon racist viewpoints. It's just sociology. It is really, really difficult to consistantly hate someone you have even trivial social contact with if they don't hate you back, especially if said hatred is irrational. There are certainly people who can manage it, but that isn't common.

[Truean]

....

Having grown up with Bigots, I can respect the sentiment, but this does not fit my experience.

White people would often come into contact with black people during segregation; they hated the black people and that they had to have any contact with them. Thus, segregation....

Lysabild does have a point, as does MSH, and I don't disagree with them for their noble dream but rather for their not recognizing that not all share it and in fact some consciously reject this dream. I agree more with RedKing.

Its the same with people's views of gays. A friend of mine recently apologized for her mother, who was cool with me hanging out with her adult daughter, but not her son, who is a minor.... [sigh] I am painstakingly nice to you, have done all kinds of things for you (for nothing), because I enjoy your daughter's company and friendship. To this mother, however, I am not trustworthy around young boys, and even if I was, then I'd be the exception to prove the rule... .

If they don't want to look, you can't pry their eyes open and make them see.

[kaijyuu]

No, Lysabild has a point. For example, the reason that pro-segregation advocates in the 1950's US fought so hard against desegregation wasn't just because they were racists, it was also because they realized on some level that if racial inclusiveness became part of society, most people would quickly abandon racist viewpoints. It's just sociology. It is really, really difficult to consistantly hate someone you have even trivial social contact with if they don't hate you back, especially if said hatred is irrational. There are certainly people who can manage it, but that isn't common.

Most people didn't abandon it with desegregated schools, though. It just turned into a White Flight for the most part, as they moved away or enrolled their kids in private schools instead of public ones.


Experience will teach a lot of things, but it's far from a catch-all solution to bigotry. There's more to it than just teaching them that not all members of a group follow the stereotypes; you've got to teach them that assuming those stereotypes apply to new people they meet or haven't met (and thus pre-judging them) is a morally reprehensible thing to do. If they don't learn that, they will always be prejudiced.

Generally the response I get from these people when pointing out exceptions to stereotypes is "well, MOST of them are!" It's worse when they have statistics (valid or not) to back up their claims. They just don't understand the underlying problem in what they're doing.

[RedKing]

No, Lysabild has a point. For example, the reason that pro-segregation advocates in the 1950's US fought so hard against desegregation wasn't just because they were racists, it was also because they realized on some level that if racial inclusiveness became part of society, most people would quickly abandon racist viewpoints. It's just sociology. It is really, really difficult to consistantly hate someone you have even trivial social contact with if they don't hate you back, especially if said hatred is irrational. There are certainly people who can manage it, but that isn't common.

I'd agree with most everything but the word quickly. It's been nearly 50 years since desegregation, and there are still plenty of racist viewpoints. There are plenty of people who were never alive in a world of legal segregation who have racist viewpoints.

Bigotry is easy. You see or read about one instance of a person of a different religion, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, etc. "behaving badly" (according to your own moral checklist), and then you make an inferential leap of logic that extends the negative opinion of that one individual to all members of the group you perceive them to be representative of. If other people around you seem to share the same opinion, then that seals the deal. It's not necessarily even done maliciously. It's just building a worldview based on erroneous logic and anecdotal data, and then confirmed by a biased sample. But like all flawed ideas, if one becomes emotionally invested in the idea, it becomes more and more likely that you reject information that contradicts it, because that would mean that you've been wrong all this time.

[Truean]

http://news.yahoo.com/woman-assaulted-settles-match-com-lawsuit-003101844.html

Take a look at the comments. They often blame the woman and call her greedy (and of course her lawyer too).

"Carole Markin sued the website when she found out her attacker had been convicted of sexual battery. She did not seek monetary damages in her lawsuit, just a court order requiring the site to check its members' backgrounds to weed out convicted sex offenders."

Of course that doesn't stop anyone from calling her money hungry, not one bit. Keep in mind, this is only 14 lines of large print text, NOT hard. People do not read and thus don't think. They have preconceived notions and bullshit running around in their head that they refuse to even consider changing. Nevermind that she never asked for a dime. People who file lawsuits are terrible and greedy and bad and they should never be allowed to do so.... [headdesk]

THIS LAWSUIT COST HER MONEY AND WAS AN ECONOMIC LOSS TO HER EVEN IF SHE WON. [sigh]

[RedKing]

We've become a nation of knee-jerks.

[Nadaka]

Nothing makes me loose hope for humanity more than reading the comments section of yahoo news. It is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

[Vector]

This is a multi-part story.

First, a woman is drugged and gang-raped by her coworkers.  Linked to Shakesville in order to acquire video transcript, because I prefer to read than to watch.

She is being sued for more than 2 million dollars, for bringing a frivolous lawsuit.

Here's the rationale.

And here's just a little piece of irony

[Andir]

No, Lysabild has a point. For example, the reason that pro-segregation advocates in the 1950's US fought so hard against desegregation wasn't just because they were racists, it was also because they realized on some level that if racial inclusiveness became part of society, most people would quickly abandon racist viewpoints. It's just sociology. It is really, really difficult to consistantly hate someone you have even trivial social contact with if they don't hate you back, especially if said hatred is irrational. There are certainly people who can manage it, but that isn't common.

I'd agree with most everything but the word quickly. It's been nearly 50 years since desegregation, and there are still plenty of racist viewpoints. There are plenty of people who were never alive in a world of legal segregation who have racist viewpoints.

Self-imposed segregation.  It happens on all sides.  It doesn't matter if it's been 2000 years if people tend to avoid buying the house next door to <insert race here> for whatever reason. (They could think the person next door will steal from them.  They could think the person next door will treat them poorly for being a certain race.  Any reason.)  Just because legal segregation has vanished doesn't mean people still don't do it on their own.  Most of the most livid racists I know grew up in a town with no minorities because the kids were scared off in school and the parents were treated like crap by the other parents.  (I grew up in such a town, but I went off to school and got out of that environment.  It was eye opening.)

Do I think you can force people into co-existing?  Not really, but I don't believe it's an ever-lasting situation.  Kids go off to school, learn that their parents were overly harsh, and racism dies a little bit each generation.  The  problem is when you have a self segregated community and nobody ever experiences the outside world.  This unfortunately happens both in small towns and inner cities.  The best way I can see to "push" kids out of these communities is to get them into mixed environments so they can talk to and learn with people from other cities.  This would be more beneficial in the K-12 education, but even college would be a step in the right direction.

[Truean]

This is a multi-part story.

First, a woman is drugged and gang-raped by her coworkers.  Linked to Shakesville in order to acquire video transcript, because I prefer to read than to watch.

She is being sued for more than 2 million dollars, for bringing a frivolous lawsuit.

Here's the rationale.

And here's just a little piece of irony

Every civil defendant claims every lawsuit is "frivolous," kinda like how all criminal defendants are "innocent." This is shameful bullshit, plain and simple.

She had surgeries to correct the damage done to her. Frivolous?

"Frivolous?" A jury may not have been entirely persuaded or she might not have been able to prove a key element, but that doesn't make it frivolous. Corporate scum and their bought politicians think "frivolous" is anything that cost the company money. The firm I work for had a client who lost a leg in an industrial accident, naturally, this was "frivolous" too. The judge who allowed the claim to proceed was an "activist." 

I'm getting very sick of people defining justice as "that which does not cost the company money."

[Vector]

Studies show that in the UK, at least, gendered pay gaps begin in early childhood.

Obviously, there's lots of potential holes in the study.  Maybe the girls receive less pocket money because they're getting more things on the side.  However, I thought it was interesting.

(My allowance started at $1 a week and moved up to $2 per week in the long run; on the other hand, I was an only child)

[Rose]

I never really had an allowance.

[Bauglir]

I was such a douche when I was younger; I actually demanded an allowance like I deserved it just for keeping my room clean and doing the odd chore or two. Feh. Kind of glad now that I didn't get one until a few years later, and $8/week was probably too much.

[Vector]

I asked for one when I was really little, because I'd read about kids in books getting money for chores "in order to teach them the value of money" (I thought I'd get a nickel or a couple of cents).  The answer was a flat no, and when I got money from my grandparents I didn't get a cent of it.  All went to save for college. 

When I finally got an allowance, because all my friends/acquaintances/cousins had allowances and I didn't, I literally never spent a cent of it (saving for two months to buy one book new seemed a bit sad to me).  Same thing with tutoring.  Rather than raise my fees from 10-12 dollars per hour (+ unpaid, self-induced overtime) and actually being able to buy things more often, I just said "whatever, I'll save it for later."

Yeah... dunno, really.