Are You Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?

Forums: The Problem, The Solution, Idiotic Rant, Idiocy Is The Problem
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I recently had a somewhat spirited mini-discussion with Aiden that took place in the larger context of a thread I started about a poll of Republicans in Mississippi that revealed that a large percentage of them would prefer that interracial marriages be considered illegal.

In short, she was saying that she would like to question some of those people to find out their thinking process behind their desire to outlaw interracial marriages, and I was saying that I wouldn’t even dignify it by allowing them to rationalize something that is self-evidently wrong.

It made me think about a lot of things. For one, I got to thinking about how there always seem to be people who tend to analyze (beyond the point that I think sensible) certain social phenomena. I think if academics and scientists want to dissect after death the brains of sociopaths, rabid bigots and vicious misogynists to see what makes them tick – have at it. But wanting to know the “why” of horrible things that people do has definite limits of usefulness, in my opinion.

There was a kind of complicity of complacency that allowed mega-wrongdoing like the Nazis experimenting with Eugenics or the United States building their economy on enslavement of an entire race.
There was a benign complicity that allowed the defensive coordinator of Penn State’s football team to rape possibly dozens of young boys for years. Just like whatever rottenness that allowed Catholic “holy men” to sexually assault young boys for decades.

Is that complicity – that tendency to blanch in horror and do nothing - at all related to the supposed intellectual curiosity that putatively motivates so many people to want to examine “why” for example, a lot of white people in the South still feel like interracial marriage should be punishable under law?

Why? Why the **** does it matter why? Instead of wasting time asking why, maybe we should be attempting to educate those dangerous idiots about why bigotry is wrong; or pushing to harshly punish those who allowed through their inaction dozens of young boys to be raped.

Martin Luther King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail was written in direct response to the clergymen of that small Alabama town who had written a letter pleading with the black population to stop their demonstrations. King’s letter stressed the desperate need for nonviolent direct action and the absolute immorality of unjust laws. King was expressing his disappointment with the 8 clergymen who had written that letter, and explained the absolute necessity of creating a tension that forces communities to confront the issues. Those 8 Birmingham “holy men” were urging King and his fellow protestors to please go home. I think in their spare time they probably had deep discussions about “why” racial injustice kept going on.

I see a connection between the figurative wringing of the hands and asking “why” about terrible things that humans do and the tendency to fail to resist wrongdoing, out of fear.

What are the character traits of an individual who will rock the boat and risk their job and blow a whistle that alerts authorities that someone in authority is doing wrong? Do those people have the same kinds of characters as those who will analyze and/or look the other way in the same situations?

Bad things don’t just continue to happen because bad people commit them, but because good people allow them to.

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@snood,

Are You Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?

yes

1 Reply

@snood,

snood wrote:

Why? Why the **** does it matter why? Instead of wasting time asking why, maybe we should be attempting to educate those dangerous idiots

In some cases, I believe you need to know the "why" to figure out what is going to work to educate them.

1 Reply

@djjd62,

lol

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@snood,

A) There's no one named Aiden on this forum (that I've seen). My name is Rebecca and I'm part of the solution. Interesting how you could spell it correctly on the other thread when you said I was entitled to my opinon, but now you can't spell my name and can't give me my opinion without accusing me of not caring or acting.

B) I'm not complicit with these people. I'm not and haven't been standing around wringing my hands. I married a black man and gave birth to one interracial child and adopted another so she wouldn't have to grow up in foster care.
I've worked my entire career with poor, black people.
Who the **** are you accusing of apathy, complicity and complacency?

C) Many times when people have to stop for a minute and explain WHY they think something, they realize there is actually no good reason for them to have those thoughts.
THAT's why I would have asked them WHY.

D) We're all products of our environments and experiences. If a particular mix of environment and experience results in pathology in a society, if we can identify and isolate the causatives and try to change those, we can address and try to redress said stew of negative influences to try to change the eventual overall outcome.
Or we could just do it your way and say, 'I don't give a **** why ya'll are so messed up - shut the **** up and get out of my face- I don't have time for this ****', (even though it's making the lives of people I care about miserable).

E) The respondents to your survey were labelled as being Republicans. There was no indication anywhere that I saw or read in the link you provided that said they were WHITE REPUBLICANS.
You inserted that in your own thinking just as you inserted and read apathy, complacency and complicity in my response.

You need to get over yourself. You're not the only person in the world in an interracial marriage and you're not the only person in the world who cares as much as you do and who knows how everyone else in the whole world should think or react to create change in society.

1 Reply

@aidan,

Whoa, you took that way too personally. And how are you going to correct my spelling of your name if it was obvious you knew I was referring to you?
You get the **** over yourself. You keep reminding everyone you're in an interrracial marriage as if that inoculates you from practicing common freakin' sense. I thought I was pretty clearly allowing that we just have differing opinions, and I was careful not to say I thought you were one of the people who was part of the problem - you made that jump yourself, and now you're bitching to me about a conclusion you jumped to.

But just for the record, yeah I think you're ******* stupid to take the "I'm a teacher at heart" approach to an article I brought up that points out just how willfully ignorant some people are. You're stupid if you think you can shed any light by asking those 46% of backwards ass hicks anything about their views on race.

The only way they're entering the 21st century is kicking and screaming - not as the result of gentle Socratic questioning.

1 Reply

@snood,

I think you are both correct in different instances. I'm sure there's bigotry that won't be obliterated by sociological questioning, and I'm pretty sure that with some individual cases of bigotry, a human condition after all, people may respond, if only after the fact with some further thinking, to reasoning questioning.

Re whistle blowing, on the Penn state thing, I see a continuum of very troubling trouble -
1) a malefactor preying on boys (maybe I should say alleged as I might have missed that this isn't somehow definite)
2) a situation where the people that should be responding about a report of all this didn't because of a long time system in place that needed to be protected
3) that being the connection between big time college football departments and their universities' reputation re PR and their endowment totals
4) together resulting in the wrong people watching the henhouse (or whatever term for the school athletic community).
5) I question even campus police departments ability to not think school PR first at least some of the time.

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Aidan:

Quote:

Or we could just do it your way and say, 'I don't give a **** why ya'll are so messed up - shut the **** up and get out of my face- I don't have time for this ****', (even though it's making the lives of people I care about miserable).

Just because I don't think it makes any sense to ask bigots why they would make interracial marriage illegal does not mean I would approach them in the way you describe above. That was all manufactured in your head. Awfully arrogant of you to think that this is the only option besides interviewing the miscreants about their stunted worldview.

Quote:

E) The respondents to your survey were labelled as being Republicans. There was no indication anywhere that I saw or read in the link you provided that said they were WHITE REPUBLICANS.
You inserted that in your own thinking just as you inserted and read apathy, complacency and complicity in my response.

No, no where in the article I cited indicated the respondents were white...just republicans in Mississippi. No where did it indicate they were righthanded or Christian or eaters of meat, either.

Quote:

You need to get over yourself. You're not the only person in the world in an interracial marriage and you're not the only person in the world who cares as much as you do and who knows how everyone else in the whole world should think or react to create change in society.

I challenge anyone to look at my launch post as if they hadn't read my posts before and didn't already know my personal circumstance, and tell me what in that post carries the message that I am in an interracial marriage. Leave alone that I think I am the only one who knows how "everyone should think or react". Again, all bullshit manufactured in your head.

I'm not sure why you have reacted so vehemently to my thread, and I really do not give a shyt. But you will not saddle me with a bunch of baggage that doesn't belong to me.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

snood wrote:
Why? Why the **** does it matter why? Instead of wasting time asking why, maybe we should be attempting to educate those dangerous idiots

In some cases, I believe you need to know the "why" to figure out what is going to work to educate them.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

1 Reply

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

ehBeth wrote:

snood wrote:
Why? Why the **** does it matter why? Instead of wasting time asking why, maybe we should be attempting to educate those dangerous idiots

In some cases, I believe you need to know the "why" to figure out what is going to work to educate them.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

I guess one of the real valuable things about coming here to A2K and trading views on issues is that sometimes even someone as hardheaded as myself can learn something. I've been thinking about this issue of talking to racists, and while I'm sure that I would be guarded in my approach (because I find it hard to be open, trusting and vulnerable to someone who thinks mixing with my kind should be illegal), I can see why it makes sense to at least treat racists as individuals. They all certainly have individual stories and variations and degrees in their attitudes.

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Gotta agree with ehBeth and Chai on this. You can't solve a problem without undertsanding why the problem exists. Without understanding how the mind of a bigot or pedophile or serial killer works, any solution you come up with will be no more than a band-aid kind of solution. Permanent solutions require a complete understanding of the problem.

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

Gotta agree with ehBeth and Chai on this. You can't solve a problem without undertsanding why the problem exists. Without understanding how the mind of a bigot or pedophile or serial killer works, any solution you come up with will be no more than a band-aid kind of solution. Permanent solutions require a complete understanding of the problem.

I still think that its possible to go too far in trying to understand certain kinds of behavior. If someone is mean or dangerous or crazy or bad enough, I still think that it might be more reasonable to leave them alone, than to try to interview them with empathy.

1 Reply

@snood,

snood wrote:

I still think that its possible to go too far in trying to understand certain kinds of behavior. If someone is mean or dangerous or crazy or bad enough, I still think that it might be more reasonable to leave them alone, than to try to interview them with empathy.

snood wrote:

I see a connection between the figurative wringing of the hands and asking “why” about terrible things that humans do and the tendency to fail to resist wrongdoing, out of fear.

...

What are the character traits of an individual who will rock the boat and risk their job and blow a whistle that alerts authorities that someone in authority is doing wrong? Do those people have the same kinds of characters as those who will analyze and/or look the other way in the same situations?

Wondering if you see the similarities in what you are criticizing and what you are advocating.

You are criticizing the apathy and inaction of witnesses to crimes while advocating apathy and inaction when it comes to witnesses to bigotry.

Is that part of the problem, or the solution?

1 Reply

@Butrflynet,

Butrflynet wrote:

snood wrote:

I still think that its possible to go too far in trying to understand certain kinds of behavior. If someone is mean or dangerous or crazy or bad enough, I still think that it might be more reasonable to leave them alone, than to try to interview them with empathy.

snood wrote:
I see a connection between the figurative wringing of the hands and asking “why” about terrible things that humans do and the tendency to fail to resist wrongdoing, out of fear.

...

What are the character traits of an individual who will rock the boat and risk their job and blow a whistle that alerts authorities that someone in authority is doing wrong? Do those people have the same kinds of characters as those who will analyze and/or look the other way in the same situations?

Wondering if you see the similarities in what you are criticizing and what you are advocating.

You are criticizing the apathy and inaction of witnesses to crimes while advocating apathy and inaction when it comes to witnesses to bigotry.

Is that part of the problem, or the solution?

That's valid. I think this is not an easy thing we're talking about. But let me say that I don't think that the only alternatives for dealing with (for instance) committed bigots are 1)attempting to engage them in enlightening conversation, or 2) completely ignoring them.

I understand that "leave them alone" could be taken as "completely ignore" them. But closer to what I meant, and probably the way I would actually act, is to talk to them with a lot of caution. Do you think that's a justifiable attitude?

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We're basically staying on one aspect of what I touched on in the launch post. That's understandable because I exposed what can easily be attacked as an inconsistency. Let me just say that I don't take that lightly - I am truly examining the state of my own heart regarding these matters as we explore them.

I have a degree that says I am someone with training as a counselor. As such, I should be expected to be concerned with more than just the surface of a person; with what motivates a person both consciously and otherwise. For someone like me to be saying "don't even bother asking bigots about their behavior and attitudes" seems like lunacy.

But fortunately or unfortunately (depending on one's perspective to this discussion) as a black man who has seen from first person and third person stances the influence of raw racism, I have a dim view of trying to reason with racists. I don't say that makes me right or wrong - I simply say that is the clay from which I have been wrought.

1 Reply

@snood,

None of the racists I personally know and have known appear susceptible to reason and education. It seems to me it is as much a part of who they are as their ties with loved ones, their faith, what they persue as life's fulfilment. In short, you could not cut it out.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

None of the racists I personally know and have known appear susceptible to reason and education. It seems to me it is as much a part of who they are as their ties with loved ones, their faith, what they persue as life's fulfilment. In short, you could not cut it out.

Me too, ed - from my experience, people who are comfortable with their racism are pretty impervious to a reasonable approach.

2 Replies

@snood,

Knowledge is power, snood. You have to know where someone is to guide them forward. I have been assisted forward by patient people who met me where I was. That is how I teach now. Understanding is a worthwhile goal to create change.

1 Reply

@Lash,

Thanks for the advice

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I have a cousin I've only met once when we were kids. Apparently he grew up to be a skinhead, in England. He got the nazi tats, had the leather jacket and the boots, the whole shabang... He grew up in a family of 7 kids, and as far as I know he was an anomaly. His parents and siblings and the rest of the extended family did NOT share his convictions. For some unknown reason he decided to travel, to india of all places...
Whilst on this trip, he ran out of money and was literally starving. The poor took pity on him and fed him. It was truly a life and death moment. He had an epiphany. It took the kindness of people he despised to turn him round.
He is now a humble man who works with the poor and disenfranchised. He had all his tattoos removed and now has hair like jesus.
I know it isn't possible for everyone to face that kind of truth in their lives but I truly wish all the haters could. Racism is pure evil. Perhaps only pure goodness can change some people and others will always be a lost cause. I'm not sure a conversation can change anyone, but it can't hurt to try.

1 Reply

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