3 ms·

It's not a myth, it's how I and other people I know actually feel. Do you think I'm speaking in coded racist terms and not being honest? I'm not, I just think w

It's not a myth, it's how I and other people I know actually feel. Do you think I'm speaking in coded racist terms and not being honest? I'm not, I just think we're all better off with the mindset that we should help ourselves first.

naravara 8y ago
>It's not a myth, it's how I and other people I know actually feel. Your feelings didn't just bubble up out of nowhere. They were incepted in you by the culture and values you absorbed growing up. When you're conditioned from the cradle to view social services as "hand-outs" being given to "underserving" populations who don't look like you, you're being influenced by a racially coded language and a racist cultural narrative. You don't even have to be consciously racist to be perpetuating it and influenced by it. Political advertising made you imagine a specific type of person when I ask you to imagine someone on public assistance the same way advertising made you imagine a chubby, rosy cheeked man in a red coat when I mention Santa Claus. And we have to be honest with ourselves about accepting that when asked to imagine a recipient of public assistance, and it's not an accident how many of those stories are racially coded.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  How do you know that it wasn't you that was brainwashed by media to believe that your opposition are racists even when they tell you explicitly that their opinions have nothing to do with race?
  - naravara 8y ago
    Because I actually spent time consciously deprogramming myself as I become aware of the perniciously racist elements of our culture natch. And it’s not complete. We all harbor some of the racist conditioning, I’m just willing to be cognizant of it because I think perpetuating racist things is worse than being called out on it.
    - tomhoward 8y ago
      It's good that you are making the effort to "deprogram"yourself. I also put a lot of work into identifying and correcting unhealthy subconscious "programming". I've been doing it for 7 years, and continue to work at it daily. And yes, some of that programming has included judgements of others based on identity group, class, etc. But it's included a lot of things too, including the propensity to judge other people negatively for not having undertaken the kind of work I've done, or assuming that the same subconscious attitudes that existed in me, equally exist in others. It's not a productive or kind way to interact with people. The most important realisation we need to make when we start understanding our inner selves is that there's so much more that we don't understand, even within ourselves, let alone others. Given this, it's not for us to make assumptions about what exists inside others or pronouncements about what others should think or do.
      - naravara 8y ago
        >Given this, it's not for us to make assumptions about what exists inside others or pronouncements about what others should think or do. This is basically just solipsism. The human condition is knowable, the concept of social science couldn't exist otherwise. There are numerous academic, clinical, epidemiological, and business disciplines that depend on doing exactly this. My personal background is in social science that I briefly applied to doing market research. But History, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, and tons of other fields also depend on being able to draw conclusions from making generalizable assumptions. The key problem here is hidden in this statement: >including the propensity to judge other people negatively for not having undertaken the kind of work I've done, or assuming that the same subconscious attitudes that existed in me, equally exist in others. You cannot make progress on addressing societal problems if the first reaction to even acknowledging the existence of the problem is to react negatively and to take the criticism as a personal attack. Frequently people act like being called racist is worse than actually perpetuating racism and that needs to change. There is no process to engage in that sort of growth in character without promoting some level of discomfort.
        malvosenior 8y ago
pwinnski 8y ago
When considering "I and other people" vs statistics, I'll generally acknowledge your experiences and go with the statistics. The statistics says that Americans are not more likely than residents of Nordic countries to believe as you do.

naravara 8y ago

>It's not a myth, it's how I and other people I know actually feel. Your feelings didn't just bubble up out of nowhere. They were incepted in you by the culture and values you absorbed growing up. When you're conditioned from the cradle to view social services as "hand-outs" being given to "underserving" populations who don't look like you, you're being influenced by a racially coded language and a racist cultural narrative. You don't even have to be consciously racist to be perpetuating it and influenced by it. Political advertising made you imagine a specific type of person when I ask you to imagine someone on public assistance the same way advertising made you imagine a chubby, rosy cheeked man in a red coat when I mention Santa Claus. And we have to be honest with ourselves about accepting that when asked to imagine a recipient of public assistance, and it's not an accident how many of those stories are racially coded.

malvosenior 8y ago
How do you know that it wasn't you that was brainwashed by media to believe that your opposition are racists even when they tell you explicitly that their opinions have nothing to do with race?
- naravara 8y ago
  Because I actually spent time consciously deprogramming myself as I become aware of the perniciously racist elements of our culture natch. And it’s not complete. We all harbor some of the racist conditioning, I’m just willing to be cognizant of it because I think perpetuating racist things is worse than being called out on it.
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    It's good that you are making the effort to "deprogram"yourself. I also put a lot of work into identifying and correcting unhealthy subconscious "programming". I've been doing it for 7 years, and continue to work at it daily. And yes, some of that programming has included judgements of others based on identity group, class, etc. But it's included a lot of things too, including the propensity to judge other people negatively for not having undertaken the kind of work I've done, or assuming that the same subconscious attitudes that existed in me, equally exist in others. It's not a productive or kind way to interact with people. The most important realisation we need to make when we start understanding our inner selves is that there's so much more that we don't understand, even within ourselves, let alone others. Given this, it's not for us to make assumptions about what exists inside others or pronouncements about what others should think or do.
    - naravara 8y ago
      >Given this, it's not for us to make assumptions about what exists inside others or pronouncements about what others should think or do. This is basically just solipsism. The human condition is knowable, the concept of social science couldn't exist otherwise. There are numerous academic, clinical, epidemiological, and business disciplines that depend on doing exactly this. My personal background is in social science that I briefly applied to doing market research. But History, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, and tons of other fields also depend on being able to draw conclusions from making generalizable assumptions. The key problem here is hidden in this statement: >including the propensity to judge other people negatively for not having undertaken the kind of work I've done, or assuming that the same subconscious attitudes that existed in me, equally exist in others. You cannot make progress on addressing societal problems if the first reaction to even acknowledging the existence of the problem is to react negatively and to take the criticism as a personal attack. Frequently people act like being called racist is worse than actually perpetuating racism and that needs to change. There is no process to engage in that sort of growth in character without promoting some level of discomfort.
      - malvosenior 8y ago

pwinnski 8y ago

When considering "I and other people" vs statistics, I'll generally acknowledge your experiences and go with the statistics. The statistics says that Americans are not more likely than residents of Nordic countries to believe as you do.