Classism and Bigotry

[bacchuswino]

There's this bug that's been biting my ass for a few days.  I keep trying to ignore it, but I can't.  I'm afraid to swat it, cause it'll be really noisy and might piss off people that just want silence in the hall.  But it's driving me fucking nuts.  It's nothing terrible, nothing horrible but some people are... sensitive.  About the use of a

Comments

[little_ribbit]

About the only thing I can do when confronted by someone with a terrible belief that is based not on logic but emotion is to remember just that: it is based on emotion, not logic. This means that logic is not sufficient alone to change their minds, no matter how air-tight the opposing logic is, and how "tepid" their justifications are. Without being able to get into their head and truly grok their belief systems, there's no way to address the core emotional issues that are their real justifications.

For example, I came out to my mom about being bi a few years ago. I was raised very conservative Christian/pseudo-fundamentalist, and naturally I was raised to believe that there was something morally wrong with any relationship or behavior that was not purely heterosexual, monogomous, chaste until marriage, vanilla, and so on. After I had spent the several years leading up to that point first determining that what I'd been taught was wrong and that, in fact, I myself was bi, I needed to figure out how I could approach mom. Using non-religious, purely logical arguments would be futile in trying to reach her, as she could always fall back on her Godly-not-worldly beliefs about how Christians are supposed to live and behave, and how she would end up judging those who act otherwise.

For my mom, I am the ultimate known quantity when it comes to another person's religious beliefs. She was my primary religious teacher, and a good one at that, and yet my convictions and beliefs are very different, and sometimes even contradict hers. The difference between her view of me and anyone else who believed all the same stuff is that she knows, inherently, where I started (that is, agreeing with her). Therefore, she is much more willing to follow my logic and justifications when I attempt to change her mind.

What this comes down to is that my mom, in order to get over her moral objection to homosexuality/bisexuality, was the type of bigot who needed to get to know a gay/lesbian/bi person very well, and respect them as an individual before she could accept them. The real kicker is that I'm also still a Christian and had gotten to where I was not by rejecting her beliefs but by thinking about them, very, very deeply, and refining them. I'd already put in the hard work to accept myself (by filtering through religious beliefs vs. cultural standards), and get it to be consistent with my core beliefs, and that allowed her to as well.

Now, she's not over her inherent uneasiness about homosexual relationships, but at least she does now understand (and admit!) that this is a personal failing of hers, born of the culture she was raised in, and that it is NOT a reflection of actual Christian morality. I can accept that point, considering she's nearly 60 and was both painfully conservative and largely unchallenged until about 5 years ago. She is also continuing to make major strides.

The unfortunate point this comes down to, though, is that normally a bigot of any stripe can often only be changed if someone is willing to meet them where they are, wrapped up in their bigotry and firmly believing that it is morally right, and spend a lot of time and compassion on teaching them otherwise. There is no easy "mass action: remove bigotry" button, no tried-and-true logical way to make them see things your way. You can only change someone's mind by caring enough about them to really listen, and usually be someone they know and respect, and even then it often doesn't work. In general, unless a bigoted individual matters to you on an individual level, it is easiest for everyone to just walk away from the discussion. Seeing them simply as "a bigot who needs to see the logial fallacies of their ways" is litle better than them seeing someone as "a homosexual/poor person/[insert ethnic minority] who needs to live morally/work harder/learn their place". It's not seeing them as a whole person, but as a person with a problem. And while, granted, our view of "bigotry really IS a problem" is true, it's still not really any more fair to them as human beings than their views of us are.

[bacchuswino]

Statistically the most powerful element of change in this particular type of situation is children or grandchildren. Terrible racists have been known to come around to a more civilized point of view when they get their first look at their multi-ethnic grandchildren. Mother's like yours sometimes accept that their children are still human and good despite their homosexuality.

At the same time there are just as many parents that abandon their children due to these same issues.

I'm goiing to disagree rather heavily with something you said in your last paragraph. Wanting someone to see the ethical fallibility of their bigoted views is nowhere NEAR as bad as actually living a life of hate. It's not close, it's not similar and it's not wrong.

It isn't exactly effective however. You can't argue someone out of the stone age, in fact... that kind of change almost never happens. When it does happen there's usually a very powerful motivator.

But bigotry is harmful, it's like committing a crime. It hurts others in a pretty major way. Trying to convince someone not to hate is kind of like convincing them not to mug people. It's not going to work, but that's the only thing wrong with it.