Liam Neeson wants to kill a black man

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TedEH

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I'd have to watch the Gillette ad again, but I don't remember taking it as misandry. :shrug: I can see why some would though.

Edit: I even remember going into it thinking "oh man, this is gonna be an eye-roll situation isn't it?" and then being relieved that it wasn't nearly as such as I expected. To me that's a very mountains from molehills kind of interpretation.
 

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I'd have to watch the Gillette ad again, but I don't remember taking it as misandry. :shrug: I can see why some would though.
And this is my point, you can see why people are taking it as misandry. "Some" is a large amount of people who have voiced boycotting the company over embracing the message.
 

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Realistically, I think the misandry thing is a stretch. If anything about that ad bothers me, it's the giant company jumping on the social justice bandwagon as a marketing tactic.

Realistically, maybe you're right.

But we could go back and forth on that all day. :lol:
 

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Here's what I want to know... Why is one of my best friends facing a longer jail sentence for marijuana (10 years) than a pedophile who hurt a member of my family and he only got three years? Take a guess as to which one is the bigger detriment. The guy at home smoking a joint not bothering anyone or the sick son of a bitch who made sure my mother and her sisters were never going to have a normal life?
I'm sorry to hear about your friend. You've gotta realize though, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Just as Max said, the war on drugs in the US (full disclosure, I'm Canadian, and to be honest, I think our judicial policy is a lot more in-tune with the public good on this issue, not perfect but better) has fuck all to do with protecting the whole of society. It's a tool to keep racial and socioeconomic minorities locked in the legal system for the benefit of rich white dudes. It's not just a money thing either, the justice system in the US treats those people as having more intrinsic value than visible minorities, and while drug convictions are far more excessive than they ought to be for everyone there, minorities get hit harder. The exact same issue is what causes certain people not to face accountability for some utterly heinous crimes like rape and molestation. That's intersectionality in a nutshell for you.
Again I might be just living under a rock and that is actually happening, if that is the case I'd be interested to read what is actually being done and eat my words. Feel free to chuck an article at me and laugh.
There's probably a cultural aspect to it. I live in Canada and this is what I see here. I also wouldn't be able to throw an article at you because this is all stuff I've learned having in-person conversations about the issue with people who know a lot more about this topic than I do, and have far more invested.

Not that I think we do everything perfectly here though. In Ontario's last provincial election, they elected Doug Ford, crack-mayor Rob Ford's brother and a mini-Trump in his own right, and the PC party. One of the first things they did was say "we're ditching comprehensive sex-ed because MORALS and it takes away parents' rights to instill their values in their children on this issue." Teachers, knowing full well that this move was absolute horseshit, made it publicly known that they were going to continue to teach the modern sex-ed program. So what did the PC party do? They set up a website for parents to report on teachers. It was some seriously heinous shit. Thankfully the backlash was actually quite strong, and my understanding is they've backed off on the whole thing. For now.

You obviously thought about this a lot. It makes me wonder where you're coming from in terms of education or activism or even job? (out of pure curiosity).
I'd say it stems from a confluence of things that happened in my life as well as just observations I made around the time those things were happening.

As far as demographics go, generally speaking I'm your typical WASP. I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not destitute. I have a college diploma (engineering) which I only graduated with last year (I went back to school comparatively late in life, as I was 31 when I graduated from college) and am currently paying off debt and saving so that I can go back and get my degree in Computer Engineering, but I'm definitely not in what some might refer to as the intellectual elite.

In the past, I was a center-right conservative. In retrospect I was a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. I voted for the federal Conservative party in Canada in 3 elections (2006, 2008 and 2011). The Conservative party won all those elections, but the first two times they were minority victories, which meant that all bills passed through legislature meant bipartisan approval. At the time, I remember thinking that the Conservatives had done a reasonable job taking a measured approach to governance, and was frustrated by what I perceived to be baseless stonewalling on the part of the center-left Liberal party and fully-left NDP. In the 2011 election, the Conservatives won a majority government, which gave them the seats necessary to pass legislation without bipartisan approval. I remember thinking to myself, "okay, this is now the point where the Conservatives can either prove that they can govern with integrity without the specter of a no-confidence vote, or they'll go full Republican (even as a Canadian conservative, I didn't like the American Republican party) and turn governance into an ideological shitshow." Unfortunately they did the latter. This put me on the path to start rethinking my views on certain things.

In early 2015, pretty much 4 years ago exactly, I became extremely sick and nearly died. I had to be hospitalized for a full month during which I had to have major surgery. While it took about 6 months until I was basically considered "recovered," I'm really still dealing with the fallout today (although, while I'm still working at it, I'm much healthier now than I was then). As someone who went from being pretty independent to having to rely quite heavily on the healthcare and social security mechanisms that exist in Canada, I definitely came to appreciate them more than I had prior (not that I was against them before, I was always a proponent of universal healthcare although my position on other social security mechanisms was ultimately somewhat more dubious). I also faced down the fact quite quickly that, if I was American, I would have been utterly and completely fucked. Assuming I survived the ordeal, I would have been left completely destitute and would have been forced to declare bankruptcy at very least. Realizing all of this, I made the decision that I needed to become an advocate for these services, to make sure that everyone had the same access to them as I did, because without them, I wouldn't be here today. I had literally been given a second chance at life, and I needed to make the best of it, and that meant confronting the social views that I'd previously held that were ideologically driven but ultimately impractical.

As I was going through this, I had to come to grips with the fact that part of the reason why I benefited so much from this was because I was a white man. I live in a place with a significant First Nations population and I've come to understand that if one of them had been in that situation, they might not have received the same level of care. When I realized this, I decided that a part of my advocacy needed to be dedicated to ensuring equal access to these services for all racial groups of all socioeconomic classes.

As I was pondering the racial component of the whole thing, the Black Lives Matter move was in full swing. I remember hearing opponents of the movement saying "all lives matter, not just black lives!" I realized that this argument was pure absolute horseshit, meant to do nothing but obfuscate and pull focus away from the fact that the reason black people were saying this was because they were actively being repressed, not because they were at all trying to say that only black lives matter, as some would have us believe. Then it dawned on me that I was guilty about holding similar views and making similar arguments about feminism. I was one of those people who was a total reactionary about the word "feminism," assuming that it implied that women wanted dominance as opposed to equality. I was also guilty of rationalizing the causes of rape. On this very forum, I remember making the argument that, if a woman didn't want to be raped, then she shouldn't put herself in compromising situations while dressed provocatively. Man, was I ever wrong.

That was a huge slap in the face, one that I really needed. If I had to peg the moment where I really changed on the inside, that was it. I now advocate entirely for feminism, racial equality and an the end of economic inequality. I am by no means an expert on any of these topics, but I'm slowly learning. The rest is history.

While I'm at it, it would be dishonest of me not to bring up the fact that I am a also Christian. Being a conservative Christian, you can imagine what my views on a lot of things were. Let's face it, it's a well known fact that most Christians don't exactly walk the walk or carry their cross, and the history of the church is filled to the brim with hypocrisy and use of scripture as a means of control. Coming to the other social revelations that I did, I knew that it would be distinctly un-Christ-like of me if I didn't also dedicate myself to fighting for these things within the church as well. My main focus is for full acceptance of the LGBTQ within the church, because I see the homophobic, anti-trans stance of many in the church as being one of the greatest sins being currently committed by the church. This one is a little closer to home for me, because I have LGBTQ friends whose experiences with the church have been extremely negative. I fight for them, to change the attitudes within the church so that they're no longer based on judgment of a person's sexuality, something that I believe is not a choice unlike many of the church's more intransigent numbers.

So yeah, how's that for a personal history lesson.
 

Xaios

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(I actually had to split my whole post into two parts because I hit the character limit. :rofl:)

I do think no matter how fair and ethical you make society as a whole, I think there will always be, at the end of the bell curve, people who will screw others, try to dominate them, in one way or another, including sexually, and you said it, it's all about power. And while I'm firmly against death penalty, lynching, and "eye for an eye" and all that jazz, there will always be a need to put these fuckers on trial and lock them up. Because not everyone comes out remorseful and chooses redemption. Social determinism is a thing, but at some point, we need to be accountable for the choices we make. You could even argue that the fairer the society, the less forgiveable it is to step over the line.

I don't disagree on any particular point. But if we focus on changing broader societal attitudes and can get to the point where we're not jailing everyone under the sun who every smoked a joint while giving a slap on the wrist to affluent people who commit actually horrible crimes, we'll not only be better equipped to pass fair judgment for such crimes, we'll also have the resources to do so, as we won't be draining the system needlessly with useless things like the war on drugs. Plus, if we focus on rehabilitation, then the number of repeat offenders will also drop accordingly.
 

TedEH

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I feel like I am, and others also are, slowly going down a similar path of rethinking our positions on things and landing in a more tolerant place. I can't picture myself ever very seriously diving into actual activism, for reasons that aren't relevant here - like I can't bring myself to say "I am a feminist" or something like that given that I can never say that my worldview is consistent with a large group like that and the way that they apply that worldview (I still kind of roll my eyes at a lot of what comes of of that camp) - but as time goes on I'm more and more falling on the left side of arguments, for lack of a better way to put it.

A lot of it is, I think, how there's a settling down of both the "all men are the worst" views being thrown around and the equivalent reactionary "why are you blaming everything on me? I'm a nice guy, I swear."
 

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I'm sorry to hear about your friend. You've gotta realize though, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Just as Max said, the war on drugs in the US (full disclosure, I'm Canadian, and to be honest, I think our judicial policy is a lot more in-tune with the public good on this issue, not perfect but better) has fuck all to do with protecting the whole of society. It's a tool to keep racial and socioeconomic minorities locked in the legal system for the benefit of rich white dudes. It's not just a money thing either, the justice system in the US treats those people as having more intrinsic value than visible minorities, and while drug convictions are far more excessive than they ought to be for everyone there, minorities get hit harder. The exact same issue is what causes certain people not to face accountability for some utterly heinous crimes like rape and molestation. That's intersectionality in a nutshell for you.

There's probably a cultural aspect to it. I live in Canada and this is what I see here. I also wouldn't be able to throw an article at you because this is all stuff I've learned having in-person conversations about the issue with people who know a lot more about this topic than I do, and have far more invested.

Not that I think we do everything perfectly here though. In Ontario's last provincial election, they elected Doug Ford, crack-mayor Rob Ford's brother and a mini-Trump in his own right, and the PC party. One of the first things they did was say "we're ditching comprehensive sex-ed because MORALS and it takes away parents' rights to instill their values in their children on this issue." Teachers, knowing full well that this move was absolute horseshit, made it publicly known that they were going to continue to teach the modern sex-ed program. So what did the PC party do? They set up a website for parents to report on teachers. It was some seriously heinous shit. Thankfully the backlash was actually quite strong, and my understanding is they've backed off on the whole thing. For now.


I'd say it stems from a confluence of things that happened in my life as well as just observations I made around the time those things were happening.

As far as demographics go, generally speaking I'm your typical WASP. I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not destitute. I have a college diploma (engineering) which I only graduated with last year (I went back to school comparatively late in life, as I was 31 when I graduated from college) and am currently paying off debt and saving so that I can go back and get my degree in Computer Engineering, but I'm definitely not in what some might refer to as the intellectual elite.

In the past, I was a center-right conservative. In retrospect I was a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. I voted for the federal Conservative party in Canada in 3 elections (2006, 2008 and 2011). The Conservative party won all those elections, but the first two times they were minority victories, which meant that all bills passed through legislature meant bipartisan approval. At the time, I remember thinking that the Conservatives had done a reasonable job taking a measured approach to governance, and was frustrated by what I perceived to be baseless stonewalling on the part of the center-left Liberal party and fully-left NDP. In the 2011 election, the Conservatives won a majority government, which gave them the seats necessary to pass legislation without bipartisan approval. I remember thinking to myself, "okay, this is now the point where the Conservatives can either prove that they can govern with integrity without the specter of a no-confidence vote, or they'll go full Republican (even as a Canadian conservative, I didn't like the American Republican party) and turn governance into an ideological shitshow." Unfortunately they did the latter. This put me on the path to start rethinking my views on certain things.

In early 2015, pretty much 4 years ago exactly, I became extremely sick and nearly died. I had to be hospitalized for a full month during which I had to have major surgery. While it took about 6 months until I was basically considered "recovered," I'm really still dealing with the fallout today (although, while I'm still working at it, I'm much healthier now than I was then). As someone who went from being pretty independent to having to rely quite heavily on the healthcare and social security mechanisms that exist in Canada, I definitely came to appreciate them more than I had prior (not that I was against them before, I was always a proponent of universal healthcare although my position on other social security mechanisms was ultimately somewhat more dubious). I also faced down the fact quite quickly that, if I was American, I would have been utterly and completely fucked. Assuming I survived the ordeal, I would have been left completely destitute and would have been forced to declare bankruptcy at very least. Realizing all of this, I made the decision that I needed to become an advocate for these services, to make sure that everyone had the same access to them as I did, because without them, I wouldn't be here today. I had literally been given a second chance at life, and I needed to make the best of it, and that meant confronting the social views that I'd previously held that were ideologically driven but ultimately impractical.

As I was going through this, I had to come to grips with the fact that part of the reason why I benefited so much from this was because I was a white man. I live in a place with a significant First Nations population and I've come to understand that if one of them had been in that situation, they might not have received the same level of care. When I realized this, I decided that a part of my advocacy needed to be dedicated to ensuring equal access to these services for all racial groups of all socioeconomic classes.

As I was pondering the racial component of the whole thing, the Black Lives Matter move was in full swing. I remember hearing opponents of the movement saying "all lives matter, not just black lives!" I realized that this argument was pure absolute horseshit, meant to do nothing but obfuscate and pull focus away from the fact that the reason black people were saying this was because they were actively being repressed, not because they were at all trying to say that only black lives matter, as some would have us believe. Then it dawned on me that I was guilty about holding similar views and making similar arguments about feminism. I was one of those people who was a total reactionary about the word "feminism," assuming that it implied that women wanted dominance as opposed to equality. I was also guilty of rationalizing the causes of rape. On this very forum, I remember making the argument that, if a woman didn't want to be raped, then she shouldn't put herself in compromising situations while dressed provocatively. Man, was I ever wrong.

That was a huge slap in the face, one that I really needed. If I had to peg the moment where I really changed on the inside, that was it. I now advocate entirely for feminism, racial equality and an the end of economic inequality. I am by no means an expert on any of these topics, but I'm slowly learning. The rest is history.

While I'm at it, it would be dishonest of me not to bring up the fact that I am a also Christian. Being a conservative Christian, you can imagine what my views on a lot of things were. Let's face it, it's a well known fact that most Christians don't exactly walk the walk or carry their cross, and the history of the church is filled to the brim with hypocrisy and use of scripture as a means of control. Coming to the other social revelations that I did, I knew that it would be distinctly un-Christ-like of me if I didn't also dedicate myself to fighting for these things within the church as well. My main focus is for full acceptance of the LGBTQ within the church, because I see the homophobic, anti-trans stance of many in the church as being one of the greatest sins being currently committed by the church. This one is a little closer to home for me, because I have LGBTQ friends whose experiences with the church have been extremely negative. I fight for them, to change the attitudes within the church so that they're no longer based on judgment of a person's sexuality, something that I believe is not a choice unlike many of the church's more intransigent numbers.

So yeah, how's that for a personal history lesson.

Wow, thanks for sharing man - sorry to hear about your illness.

I feel like I am, and others also are, slowly going down a similar path of rethinking our positions on things and landing in a more tolerant place. I can't picture myself ever very seriously diving into actual activism, for reasons that aren't relevant here - like I can't bring myself to say "I am a feminist" or something like that given that I can never say that my worldview is consistent with a large group like that and the way that they apply that worldview (I still kind of roll my eyes at a lot of what comes of of that camp) - but as time goes on I'm more and more falling on the left side of arguments, for lack of a better way to put it.

A lot of it is, I think, how there's a settling down of both the "all men are the worst" views being thrown around and the equivalent reactionary "why are you blaming everything on me? I'm a nice guy, I swear."

That's pretty much exactly how I feel. I've definitely gone more "left" on topics such as this, although I try and look at it from a neutral perspective.
 

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I used to be a hardcore right winger... then I became more center... now I'm far more in the left than I ever thought I would be.
I was brainwashed from birth to be hardcore right. Three years in Iraq and traveling abroad cured it. America is a fantasy inside a bubble.
 

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I feel like this sort of misses the point though -
I used to be of a different mindset on this, but as I get older, and I've been watching/observing as my nephews, and the kids of coworkers, etc., are being raised and I'm seeing such huge divides and differences in the attitudes being conveyed down from parents to kids. It's not a "they are toxic right from the womb" scenario, it's that parents are basically doing a shitty job and imparting values into their kids that lead to less-than-great behavior. Teaching kids that not every life is equally valuable. Teaching kids that the world is shitty so you should respond to that by just saying screw everyone and doing whatever you want. Like it or not, we lead by example, and without the opportunity to provide context to those observing our actions.

I hate to use PunkBill as an example, but if you took the same attitude you have here, and imagine putting that on display while raising a kid- they learn so many things by observation without context. I would be very concerned that you would raise a kid who who find a lot of ways to justify murder to themselves, whereas I would probably produce a kid with the opposite flaw of being unable to defend themselves against the unfair reality that violence is out there even if I don't like it.

It's an uncomfortable truth that the valuation system that allows a person to rape or murder has to have come from somewhere -> It's picked up from parents and teachers and other kids and TV shows etc etc etc etc. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the fact that we have raised people to become monsters - people are not monsters by default. IMO it's a societal cause, and therefor needs a societal solution.

Edit: And that comes back around to the Gillette thing. I'm very often on the side of "lets not define masculinity as toxic by default", but the message that we're responsible for shaping the behaviors of the people we bring into the world is IMO absolutely the right message. Marketing BS and political/activism/political correctness aside.


Here's the thing though, there's a difference between what you believe yourself and what you raise your children to believe or how you choose to vocalize a belief. If I were to have a child I wouldn't just outright say "kill that motherfucker." I certainly wouldn't show any love towards someone like that, but I think that regardless of what you believe, you have to take into consideration what your children hear you say. If you're like me and you use the word "fuck" like it's your job, fine, but you can't expose children to that shit. They'll get the idea that pedophiles and rapists are not good people from me, yes, but at the same time, I'm also going to do my absolute damndest to put them on a better path than I was. As stated before, it's hard for me to think rationally on a personal level about rapists and such. However, with me having nieces and nephews, my views about those things and other people I consider to be a detriment don't come out. I try and put out as much positivity as I can when they're around and then you fuckers get to deal with everything else. :lol:

P.S. Before you question the legitimacy of the whole nieces and nephews anecdote, it should be pointed out that I'm around them more than their own father is, so there's that. I don't say anything around them that I don't want them to say, I don't do anything around them that I don't want them to do. I would raise my own the exact same way.
 

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It's very possible that you're not a good example for my point because you do seem to understand that your take on things aren't necessarily something you'd want to put on display in front of kids. I can respect that.

BUT the point still stands than many either don't have that filter or are oblivious to the fact that it matters. I hear my own nephews say things that reflect particular attitudes that they've inherited from their father that, if they go unchallenged, could lead to some less-than-savory character traits down the road. I try to serve as a better example in the odd case that I can, and I know they have other role models in their life, but the fact of the matter is that their most immediate and relevant role model is entirely oblivious to the kinds of attitudes he's embedding into the core of his kids upbringing.

I legitimately worry that it's going to get those kids into trouble when they're older. And as poorly as I've framed them, they're certainly not the worst off - I've seen MUCH worse parenting than that too.
 

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It's very possible that you're not a good example for my point because you do seem to understand that your take on things aren't necessarily something you'd want to put on display in front of kids. I can respect that.

BUT the point still stands than many either don't have that filter or are oblivious to the fact that it matters. I hear my own nephews say things that reflect particular attitudes that they've inherited from their father that, if they go unchallenged, could lead to some less-than-savory character traits down the road. I try to serve as a better example in the odd case that I can, and I know they have other role models in their life, but the fact of the matter is that their most immediate and relevant role model is entirely oblivious to the kinds of attitudes he's embedding into the core of his kids upbringing.

I legitimately worry that it's going to get those kids into trouble when they're older. And as poorly as I've framed them, they're certainly not the worst off - I've seen MUCH worse parenting than that too.

Oh no your worry is completely legitimate. I'm not doubting that one damn bit. And the fucked up thing? I feel like media plays a lot into the mindsets of people who raise their children less than desirably so what you get is: "Black people are thugs and bad." How do you know that, Dad? "Fox news said so." Well it's on the news, so it must be true. There are people like where I live, it's fucking frightening how gullible some people can be in terms of that shit. There are people around here who would have you believe that across the river in Memphis, Tennessee there are blacks killing blacks and white people right out in plain site. My wife and I went there just last year to Beale Street and EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE was getting along like they were brothers and sisters and family. That right there my friend was one of the most beautiful goddamn sights I've ever seen because it completely negates what the media would have you believe about other people. There were people from all walks of life talking like they knew each other from birth. I think if more people traveled and saw that, the world would be a better place.

Now does that mean that crime doesn't happen? No. But it means to me that the world in terms of race relations isn't nearly as fucked up as they would have you believe. There are racist people from all walks of life, yes, but it's not like the US is mid-war with itself or at least I don't think so.
 
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TedEH

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Yeh it's definitely a problem with news as well. The particular examples I was thinking of would be like having parents who will just blurt out blatantly racist things in clear earshot of the kids. Or maybe you'll be talking in the kitchen and say I mention any random lady I know, work with, etc. -> he immediately jumps to "tell me you're hitting that", to which I say "no, she's not single", and he'd respond with "you could take him, just f*ck him up", or "so what? they're all just holes to fill anyway" or something like that. With all of the kids in the room. He says it with a big grin, thinking he's the funniest person in the world, but a 12 year old doesn't know how to process that information.
 

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Yeh it's definitely a problem with news as well. The particular examples I was thinking of would be like having parents who will just blurt out blatantly racist things in clear earshot of the kids. Or maybe you'll be talking in the kitchen and say I mention any random lady I know, work with, etc. -> he immediately jumps to "tell me you're hitting that", to which I say "no, she's not single", and he'd respond with "you could take him, just f*ck him up", or "so what? they're all just holes to fill anyway" or something like that. With all of the kids in the room. He says it with a big grin, thinking he's the funniest person in the world, but a 12 year old doesn't know how to process that information.
Yes this so freaking much. When I was a kid I took shit adults said very seriously. It turns out that I definitely should not have. It could have saved me so much fear, stress, and anxiety growing up.

I remember my first day of school. It was the first time I had been around a lot of other kids that weren't family (white) or church (again all white) kids. I seriously walked up to this black boy and asked him if he was a n**ger. I had no idea what the word meant. All I knew is that when a black person came on the TV that is what my family called them. Needless to say I got an elbow to the diaphragm and the kid did not like me after that. I honestly had no idea why.
 

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I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some suuuuuuuper racist views when I was a kid -> but it was because I was never told any differently. I can remember at one point (I'm talking like age 13-14 or something) thinking that each race was literally a different animal. Like you had dogs, cats, horses, white people, black people, asian people, etc. Because I was literally never told at any point that this wasn't the case, and that's the way people acted around eachother.
 

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I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some suuuuuuuper racist views when I was a kid -> but it was because I was never told any differently. I can remember at one point (I'm talking like age 13-14 or something) thinking that each race was literally a different animal. Like you had dogs, cats, horses, white people, black people, asian people, etc. Because I was literally never told at any point that this wasn't the case, and that's the way people acted around eachother.


So you had Lovecraftian racism then. :lol:
 

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Not even trippin over here...

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While I'm at it, it would be dishonest of me not to bring up the fact that I am a also Christian. Being a conservative Christian, you can imagine what my views on a lot of things were. Let's face it, it's a well known fact that most Christians don't exactly walk the walk or carry their cross, and the history of the church is filled to the brim with hypocrisy and use of scripture as a means of control. Coming to the other social revelations that I did, I knew that it would be distinctly un-Christ-like of me if I didn't also dedicate myself to fighting for these things within the church as well. My main focus is for full acceptance of the LGBTQ within the church, because I see the homophobic, anti-trans stance of many in the church as being one of the greatest sins being currently committed by the church. This one is a little closer to home for me, because I have LGBTQ friends whose experiences with the church have been extremely negative. I fight for them, to change the attitudes within the church so that they're no longer based on judgment of a person's sexuality, something that I believe is not a choice unlike many of the church's more intransigent numbers.

Well, thanks for sharing so much detail with a perfect stranger :p My parents are liberal kinda hippie-like so for me this kind of thinking was always a natural thing (of course I had to adjust some of my ideas when growing up, and things are always evovling anyway). But I find it really interesting when people come to draw these conclusion about humanity, acceptance, tolerance by themselves eventhough they come from a radically different background (oh and I'm also an engineer). What you say about the church rings very true, but I think you'll find that there were also throughout history progressive figures and movements or order within christianity, contesting the unfair decisions of popes or the accumulation of wealth by the higher clergy, very much like political parties. Or supporting workers' movements in the early 20th century. I'm not an expert on the subject, but it seems to me that a dude like Jesus was quite progressive for his time. Too bad a lot of his followers today are stuck in this time's spirit.
I'm currently reading The Name of the Rose, which is precisely about these kind of things, I definitely recommand this book and I'm not even done reading it.

As I was pondering the racial component of the whole thing, the Black Lives Matter move was in full swing. I remember hearing opponents of the movement saying "all lives matter, not just black lives!"

I remember also having a bit of a knee jerk reaction to that slogan, eventhough (and even here in Europe) it was quite clear that discrimination is a serious issue in the US. I think calling it Black Lives Matter Too would have prevented some stupid reactions, or least made it a little harder for biggots to come back at it. But it's easy to say in hindsight.
 

TedEH

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While maybe it would have flattened a few knee-jerk reactions (or might not have), it also would have flattened the impact of the statement. Saying "too" still concedes the point to being secondary to something that mattered before it, so to speak.
 


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