Sheer quote on racism
I posted this on facebook, but it occured to me it might be worth saving here
“Seeking a middle ground in racial politics, given that one side is nazis, is a little like seeking a middle ground between closed and open on a circuit breaker. It might exist (in the sense that briefly the contacts are in transition and there’s a arc drawn between them) but if you stay there too long shit is probably going to catch on fire and someone is going to get hurt. Some things really are black and white, and I am mystified as to how you can find middle ground between “I want to kill people who are a different race than I am” and “everyone is the same under the skin”.”
February 16th, 2022 at 8:38 am
I’m glad you did post it here. I absolutely agree. On some things there just isn’t a middle ground. I like your circuit breaker analogy.
February 16th, 2022 at 1:20 pm
I think the bedrock you’re working off of by assuming that “one side” is all “murdering Nazis” could be impeding your logistics.
February 16th, 2022 at 10:57 pm
It is a fact that Stormfront exists and that there are members and sympathizers of that movement who are involved in racial politics discussion. Some of them even get elected to local or state office. Also, there are KKK members aplenty, various white supremacist movements, and so on — they are in this country, they are vocal and rather loud (as they have a first amendment right to be, here, until they call for direct violence). And they have *opinions* about this stuff. So, yeah, that *is* one side of the racial politics discussion. There are people who long for the days of lynching picnics. I know this because I’ve sat near some of them in school and at Thanksgiving. Let’s not pretend those voices aren’t there. And we should not be giving them any legitimacy by pretending there’s some kind of middle ground where they’re partly right. There isn’t. Racism is stupid. End of.
February 17th, 2022 at 2:46 am
I heartily agree with the last two sentences of the above comment.