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I've tried this, and sometimes it's worked. When it has, it's usually when I'm part of the group that's hated by someone. As in this article, or in my personal

I've tried this, and sometimes it's worked. When it has, it's usually when I'm part of the group that's hated by someone. As in this article, or in my personal experience talking with people biased against atheists or liberals, I was able to make headway by demonstrating that I am not the idea of what they hate. I have had absolutely no progress with this when talking about homophobia, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, or anti-immigrant biases. I'm a straight white male with no Jewish heritage in sight and an nth generation German-Irish American. I've tried, in earnest, to apply the same "killing them with kindness" philosophy to folks to people who hold abhorrent views towards groups that aren't like me, and it's failed miserably. The cop-out from the other party is that being liberal, I'm brainwashed or following my mainstream media marching orders or something to that effect. That my impression and my testimony that black people aren't lazy, that women are not less capable managers and programmers, et cetera., is irrelevant to the person I'm arguing with. I'm not black/Latino, I'm not a woman, I'm not able to demonstrate those things in a way that is convincing. This is deeply disconcerting to me, because it seems allyship helps in some cases (LGBT movement) but from testimony I've heard at conferences, the best way to change a homophobic or transphobic person's mind is to first, be their friend or family member, and second, come out as LGBT. The monumental success of acceptance of the LGBT movement seems to be almost entirely from encouraging people to come out to their friends and family members. Without downplaying it too much, I think that the language of allyship is primarily helpful at convincing people in power that they can be part of that movement, but it wasn't useful in changing people's minds. My question to Hacker News is: why should the burden be on me, someone who is opposed to the KKK and the resurgent white nationalism in this country, to befriend people? And is there any evidence (or personal testimony from other commenters) that this sort of thing works when not part of the targeted minority? Because I am exhausted. Again, I want to reiterate: "killing with kindness" was tremendously successful for me when I was dealing with people that didn't like some group identity I shared: liberalism, secularism. But it utterly fails when I try to talk to say, a racist friend of a family member who calls Colin Kaepernick "caperdink" and Barack Obama "obummer". Kindness doesn't seem to work when as a white man, they expect me to be kind.

harpiaharpyja 9y ago
I don't see why you should feel like the burden is on you. Ultimately you don't decide what other people think, and so you cannot be responsible for changing their minds. You can show them that alternate beliefs (yours) do exist, and that you hold them just as they hold theirs. Unless you're involved in a personal situation where a third person - friend or family - is being a victim of hate, I wouldn't beat yourself up over your inability to do more.
danielvf 9y ago
I hear your frustration. It does indeed sound like your case is completely different from the article in two big ways. First, as you’ve noted, you aren’t whoever you are standing up for, and so knowing you doesn’t change people opinion of the other. Secondly, it sounds like you are trying really hard to convince them, and failing. The man in the article was not trying to convince at all at first, but rather to understand. Oddly enough, working hard to understand someone else is one of the first steps to their allowing themselves room to understand your views.
tboyd47 9y ago
No, it doesn't work for us the same way. You can't go out and befriend Klansmen and expect that to have such an effect on them because they'll just think you're one of them. I have family like that too, and the only thing to do is be very clear you have zero tolerance for any kind of racism. Even the small kinds. You can still be kind to them once they understand that, though. I still have these debates with some of my closest family members. The trick is not to let it get wrapped up in politics. I have an uncle who is deeply anti-liberal and who thinks I am a liberal. He's always trying to bait me into a political discussion and I just don't respond to that.
- jaggederest 9y ago
  Frankly this is a situation I find myself in at every extended family gathering. The majority of my family are simply unrepentantly biased and have no desire to change. I don't think expressing zero tolerance for it helps, in my experience. The thing that I do is simply express my opinion on the matter, rather than my judgement of their opinion. Nobody will listen when you attempt to criticize their opinion, but they will hear you if you provide a contrasting example. Take the example of my Aunt, who used to say "jew them down" or "got gypped" routinely. I don't think she's antisemitic or racist per se, but man, when I said "You know, it's funny, most of the Jewish people I know are very generous and kind, they don't usually like to haggle over prices", she stopped and thought for a while, and asked me about them. She simply doesn't know any Jewish or Romani people, so had never thought about those turns of phrase or what they implied.

harpiaharpyja 9y ago

I don't see why you should feel like the burden is on you. Ultimately you don't decide what other people think, and so you cannot be responsible for changing their minds. You can show them that alternate beliefs (yours) do exist, and that you hold them just as they hold theirs. Unless you're involved in a personal situation where a third person - friend or family - is being a victim of hate, I wouldn't beat yourself up over your inability to do more.

danielvf 9y ago

I hear your frustration. It does indeed sound like your case is completely different from the article in two big ways. First, as you’ve noted, you aren’t whoever you are standing up for, and so knowing you doesn’t change people opinion of the other. Secondly, it sounds like you are trying really hard to convince them, and failing. The man in the article was not trying to convince at all at first, but rather to understand. Oddly enough, working hard to understand someone else is one of the first steps to their allowing themselves room to understand your views.

tboyd47 9y ago

No, it doesn't work for us the same way. You can't go out and befriend Klansmen and expect that to have such an effect on them because they'll just think you're one of them. I have family like that too, and the only thing to do is be very clear you have zero tolerance for any kind of racism. Even the small kinds. You can still be kind to them once they understand that, though. I still have these debates with some of my closest family members. The trick is not to let it get wrapped up in politics. I have an uncle who is deeply anti-liberal and who thinks I am a liberal. He's always trying to bait me into a political discussion and I just don't respond to that.

jaggederest 9y ago
Frankly this is a situation I find myself in at every extended family gathering. The majority of my family are simply unrepentantly biased and have no desire to change. I don't think expressing zero tolerance for it helps, in my experience. The thing that I do is simply express my opinion on the matter, rather than my judgement of their opinion. Nobody will listen when you attempt to criticize their opinion, but they will hear you if you provide a contrasting example. Take the example of my Aunt, who used to say "jew them down" or "got gypped" routinely. I don't think she's antisemitic or racist per se, but man, when I said "You know, it's funny, most of the Jewish people I know are very generous and kind, they don't usually like to haggle over prices", she stopped and thought for a while, and asked me about them. She simply doesn't know any Jewish or Romani people, so had never thought about those turns of phrase or what they implied.