leashyourkids wrote:
FavreFan wrote:
I think leash's argument that people claim others are racist too often is correct(I'll even concede I'm part of that problem sometime). He is absolutely incorrect to use that argument to in any way defend Donald Trump. Donald Trump isn't just incompetent. Donald Trump is a white man with a racist ideology that he's displayed with his public actions and rhetoric on numerous occasions. I don't believe my last sentence is disputable. And he is the fucking President of the United States so any talk trying to differentiate between racist and supremacist based on power is invalidated.
But this is also a difference in perception that I argue about with MANY people. I am a big fan of Hanlon's Razor... "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance." MANY of you give way too much credit to others. A woman I work with and am good friends with is like that. She always thinks everyone is up to something or trying to pull one over on her. I always tell her, "No, they're just stupid." I feel this way about Trump. I think most of his statements are attributable to his idiocy. If that makes me some sort of Trump apologist, then our political discourse in this country has gone way off the rails.
Totally get this but then there's also the experience factor. We can have objective discussions about racism or bigotry or whatever, but racism and bigotry are also (and obviously) experiential things. Just to take an easy example, sure, two non-Mexicans can have a debate about Trump's campaign announcement press conference back in 2015 to determine whether or not the generalization of them as murderers, rapists, etc., and the caveat of some of them, he assumes, being good people is racist. Maybe one of these people will say Trump wasn't being racist because he's not a talented orator, and he was just being clumsy with words, and he was just awkwardly pandering to his base, etc, and that there's no way he actually believes the things he either said or implied about Mexicans. And then the other guy might just go nuclear and say he's undoubtedly racist in the same reactionary manner some of us are criticizing in this thread, and that if you defend him then you're a racist too or an apologist for racism at the very least.
I think what gets lost in these sorts of debates is the experiential thing. These non-Mexicans experience Trump's comments intellectually, and then rationally discuss whether or not these comments are racist. But for someone directly impacted by these comments, i.e. a Mexican, the experience of hearing the comments typically activates more emotional responses that others sometimes may or may not share, and in that emotion the charge of racism arises. Does that mean that if someone subjectively experiences "racism" then that means the experience was automatically a "racist" one? Not always, but it's a tricky exercise when trying to answer that question, especially if you're not directly impacted by that experience. If I was Mexican in that situation I guess my first reaction would obviously be defensive, and I'd probably think "fuck you, asshole, we're not rapists and murderers," and I might think he's ignorant if he really thinks that way, but I don't know if I'd say he's racist. Tell you what, though, after that experience I certainly would be sympathetic to arguments labeling him as a racist, and I certainly wouldn't be in a rush to side with commentators who would try to explain his performance as clumsy or awkward but not racist, or whatever. Not saying it's all correct, but I think many who go with the nuclear option a lot by calling people racists do so because they may see how groups called out by Trump or whomever react, and then that reaction informs their own perspective on whatever comment, rightly or wrongly. On the flip side, it may be that those who would say the Mexican in my example is overreacting to a clumsily delivered remark by Trump, or whatever, just haven't been able to empathize with that Mexican, and try to see things from their perspective.
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