I think you are missing my point.
I am missing your point and I think you are missing my point as well. At it's base I think your severe trauma as a child has meant you are being really concrete in your thinking and not seeing the abstract thinking and humour that goes with where I sit with this. This humour is a survival thing in the communities that I move amongst and belong to, it's psychological survival. I don't think I can understand your position, just as I don't think you can understand my position. We occupy completely different spheres.
Communities have to work out ways of leaving the house when people in their communities are literally being killed by racist, homophobic and transphobic violence. One of those ways in engaging in humour. It is life saving. Those that engage in this humour have much better mental health and resilience than those that don't. They also commit suicide a hell of a lot less.
If I went and made a blanket statement that in effect - People who are homophobic are stupid. How is that assumptions conducive to changing prejudice?
That's not the purpose of why I posted this - it was for the humour element, so that folks, who often face struggles leaving the house because of the fears of being victimised due to racist, homophobic or transphobic violence can have a giggle. I have experienced being attacked due to white blokes engaging in homophobia. Those white blokes where known to the religious people in my local community who saw them as harmless and uneducated. True they were uneducated but they weren't harmless. It wasn't until these white women saw these men once harassing a Muslim woman that they actually saw what I was talking about.
Are people who express prejudice as a reflection of the views expressed by their families, churches or other social influences too dumb to change?
That is not what I said. And I am involved in cross religious and also policy stuff where we are writing around white supremacy - how to prevent young white male radicalisation and then what's available for deradicalisation and spoiler alert in Australia there's nothing. I am also involved in strategic planning with a Muslim community and trying to get more awareness and education around not treating and viewing all Muslims as terrorists which hopefully will stop violence against Muslims. I can be active in the spaces which work towards assisting people to change and also have a wicked sense of humour at the same time. The two aren't mutually exclusive, I can walk and chew gum at the same time.
I am not going to cast a net so wide to include individuals who are uneducated, underexposed and haven't been afforded the opportunity to learn a different viewpoint or mindset, in the same group as murderers and rapists.
But they are rapists and murderers. Folks who are bigoted and prejudice have been involved in an upswing of violence against Asians around the world due to the racism promoted around the Coronavirus. There's not no one killing these people. The murders aren't happening from no one.
White supremacy is out of control in Australia, despite our intelligence warning us about the upcoming problems for the last two decades. White people don't want to see the white terrorists in their own families, communities and in their own midst. That colour blindness is enabling dangerous white people to organise and make plans that are going to end badly for all of us like Timothy McVeigh.
There's not no one killing Black and trans folks all across America.
10th Transgender Victim of Violence, Making 2021 On Track To Become Most Deadly Ever
Most individuals that I have come across in my life who are prejudice are not criminals, they honestly haven't been exposed or taught, and are reacting on their own unfounded fears based on stereotypes and generalizations
How do you know they have not raped or killed people? You don't. People who met my Father thought he was a really nice man. Well he was a nice man. He was a nice man that raped children. Just because you like someone, doesn't mean that they aren't violent towards People of Colour or other minorities. Your experience of them, is not everyone else's experience of them. I have experienced this first hand where white women insisted their men were harmless and uneducated and it wasn't until their men were caught, red handed that they finally believed me. Just because you haven't seen people in your community raping children, or being violently racist or harassing and stalking LGBTIQQA+ people, doesn't mean they aren't doing it, it just means you haven't seen it yet or they haven't been caught.
General ignorant people can be educated. But there's got to be some of them out there doing the violence, murders and the rape, or it wouldn't be happening around the world. It's happening. Someone is doing it. And yes there will be people that you know who say racist things or commit racist violence when you are not with them. It's just like saying all men don't rape, true, but it doesn't mean rapes are not happening. It doesn't mean that men you like aren't doing the rapes. You just don't know about them.
Instead of villainizing or generalizing groups, lets educate, provide opportunity, and most of all stop passing judgement on people based upon the color of their skin, their religion, sexual orientation or how they identify.
Doing that, engaged in multiple spaces, and I am still allowed to have a laugh as a bit of stress relief. It's sanity saving. I will stop passing judgement on white folks racism and the bigotry and prejudice against LGBTIQQA+ when people in those communities stop dying from that racism and prejudice. White folks hurt feelings are not on the same level as the literal deaths of people from minority positions. It's just not the same thing.
I want to be the change and in my little circle of contacts, that is what I will focus on.
I am in the change in my little circle of contacts. I am also part of the change in state and national groups as well. I am truly involved and engaged. I just don't share that work and those projects on this forum as it's not relevant to this forum.
I am involved in ongoing education with psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, counsellors and psychiatric nurses. I am constantly bringing up how white cultural identity needs to be looked at, otherwise it impacts on your clients. They didn't' think it was a problem when I joined the group, but have grown enough now for some of their clients to thank them for being less racist/homophobic in their sessions. You are right education is the key.
Humour, is also, a way of surviving. And given the freely available racism, sexism, homophobic and transphobia that circulates in our society, white folks can suck it up now and again, and sit with the uncomfortability of someone else having a laugh at their stupidity or lack of education. It's good for white folks to start experiencing this, and grow out of their white fragility.
I would really hate to see what would happen to anyone that would try to hurt one of our group, because they are African-American, Muslim, handicapped, a lesbian, a communist, etc., because they are our family and friends and we love them. I honestly don't think there would be enough pieces to pick up.
I know that many white people think that they are inclusive of different communities that they are involved in, but my experience is every time the white folks disappear everyone talks about the stresses of being with the white, cis gendered, hetranormative folks in their lives. They love them and they don't want to lose them from their lives, so they don't have the hard talks because the white women often cry when they are challenged about the most minor of things. So they put up with it all.
The legitimate grievances of brown and black women are no match for the accusations of a white damsel in distress
www.theguardian.com
My Muslim friends are exhausted from dealing with the Non Muslim folks in the Australian Hate Network due to their Islamophobia, but they have to work in those spaces, they they just suck it up all the time, day in and day out.
My Black friend who visits her white family members, rings me and cries about the racism after visiting her family. I worked with that woman, her racism toward children of colour was one of the reasons that I quit that job, because she thinks she is not racist and she thinks she is inclusive and she has Black family members, she gets away with it. She is in denial. So her organisation's view of her racism is very different to her families opinion of her racism.
www.unilad.co.uk
