I‘m assuming most of you have heard about the whole ((())) thing? The short version is that white supremacists on Twitter and elsewhere have started using triple parentheses around the names of people they know (or at least think) are Jewish.
Now some people (including me) have started putting parentheses around their own names, even if they’re not Jewish, in solidarity with those who’ve been tagged.
Apparently racist mass murderer Dylann Roof — he’s the guy who shot and killed nine black churchgoers during a prayer meeting a year ago — had some similar ideas about how to mark the evil Jews so everyone would be able to spot them at a distance.
I learned that from this lovely Tweet:
Or, for a more retro look, you could always use the classic yellow star.
@DS
As someone with brain damage and mental illness, fuck you.
I think racism has roots in psychopathy. Just from from my personal experience and research with both racists and psychopaths, of which my family tree has many branches.
On the hand, I am not a psychologist nor do I research mental disorders. It would be a fascinating hypothesis if it was studied by actual professionals and not internet armchair psychiatrists.
*professionally research mental disorders, I meant to say.
I didn’t hear about that until now. It’s a stupid idea on top of a stupid old prejudice. On the bus, I was reading a history book about World War 1, and the writer was talking about anti-Jewish conspiracies of the time (people blamed them for the Russian revolution, and it’s around the time the Protocols of the Elders of Zion forgery started being circulated). While the writer was careful to say that this didn’t inevitably lead to Nazi Germany, and that other things could have happened, it was definitely part of the background.
…Anyway, let’s make it more difficult for the bracketeers! Since they’re fascists and all, maybe we can convince them to be mathematically correct with their nested parentheses, like this: {[(name of Jewish conspirator)]}. That’d at least slow ’em down.
Signed, Your Friendly Neighbourhood Grammar Non-Nazi
I’ve had a psychotic break, and it didn’t make me any more racist than I am already as a fairly privileged person. There’s some evidence that there may be forms of sociopathy that stem from a lack of chemical signalling that permits empathy (I’ve read some very sad case studies from parents desperate to get treatment for beloved children).
While I was psychotic, I began to have problems with empathy because reality was so distorted I couldn’t be certain what was a person and what was not. I knew, for example, that I was not a person. But I wasn’t necessarily anti-social. The rules still existed, but I could no longer discern what categories objects fitted into.
It has been argued that Hitler was not psychotic – by clinical forensic psychologist Glenn Walters. He showed empathy and other related concepts, but he showed them selectively. The argument would be that he was not psychotic, he was evil.
@DS
No. Don’t do the whole ‘it must be mental illness thing’. I’m sure other people here will tell you why not. But besides all the other good reasons to not do that, this also has NOTHING to do with mental illness. Racism and other biases exists in varying degrees in (more or less) everyone. We have biases that we’re not even aware of. There have been studies on this. I don’t have the links available atm, but if you google “Racial bias empathy study” you should get some hits.
As for the white supremasists and neo-nazis spesifically: If you want to understand how they end up there, you could read up on radicalization towards extremism in general and as it relates to white supremasists spesifically. That is often (tho not always) the process that leads people down that path.
Well darn– can’t find the clip of Yellow Submarine that would fit this conversation before it got accidentally derailed by DS.
i think everyone probably has hateful and prejudicial thoughts about people, maybe sometimes because of the color of their skin, or what kind of bits they have or don’t have between their legs, or what gods they do or don’t worship, or what they do for a living.
but i don’t really think it matters whats going on in anyone’s head. as far as i’m concerned, you can be playing out the sickest, most twisted, murder/sex fantasies imaginable in your brain all day long, but if what you actually do with your physical actions is devote your time to feeding homeless children than you’re an awesome person.
or, more succinctly, to quote Diane from “Bojack Horseman”
“I don’t think I believe in ‘deep down’. I think that all you are is just the things that you do.”
So, is “I don’t mean to be ableist, but…” the new “I’m not racist, but…”?
“If you ever forget you’re a jew, a gentile will remind you.”
Well, looks like my blood is not dirty as long as I don’t take back the identity my Grand grandfather hid and forgot not to be killed!
Gladly I am with a project to reconnect myself so I can be dirty again.
Mmmmhhh, now I am the slutty hairy false-rape-victim non-white* lesbian** radfem*** jew! Ready to take over the world from ciswhitemales. Bow.
Filthy kisses for you all.
*I look white and am perceived as white inside my country, and am definitely privileged in this sense. But in germany I had situations where people treat me as non white (?!), and I have amerindian and jew blood, among others, and am a latina. So racial purists definitely see something non white in me.
**Not really lesbian, actually bi/pan (i’d say I like non binaries but never met one), but some people perceive me as a lipstick lesbian in denial, even when they don’t know I am bi and know I have a bf.
***I self identify as Intersec, because from the background I came from it’s the only thing that makes sense, but I just learned radical may mean “I am not going to be stopped even by the government (did I understand this right, Dalli?)”, then I can be a radfem in a certain contexts.
A bit off topic, but since I touched the subject, where I came from “liberal feminist/libfem” means a wing of feminism that is veeery light, very “I am a feminist but still very cool, guys!”, very “yes!!!! We do accept men!!!”, resuming, very white, privileged and close to non efficient for anything other than self empowering. “Emma Watson” feminism, if you will (which is alright, btw, but too cute and light hearted. You wont convince world leaders to do deep changes by asking “pretty please”. Also, heforshe my ass. If even many women wont stand for each other, you can’t count on men or keep getting their heads petted). But I recently discovered that it may mean “feminist who, in a US context, would vote for the liberal party”, which is crazy! Because depending on the context, I can say I am intersec, AND lib AND rad! That’s SO interesting!
To complete the misandry (sorry, boys, you know I love you! Nothing personal! Keep being wonderful!), here goes a meme (that I find a bit too harsh, Feminism should contemplate and help some men too, but i’m posting for hilarity) for which I FINALLY found an opportunity to post!:
Translation: A felinism that pleases dogs; is not revolutionary
http://i.imgur.com/qvdVQPW.jpg
I love that ((())) looks like a vagina with the big inner labias spreading sideways. That’s beautiful. My name will stay like that.
@ DS
No. Well…it’s a psychological condition commonly known as “being human”. It’s just how our brains work. We take shortcuts. If we hear/see a thing often enough, our brains treat it as true. It’s why we have formal logic and the scientific method: because we know from long experience that we do not, in fact, perceive the world around us accurately. We’re not inherently rational creatures. So, we’ve developed systems of rules that we follow closely to circumvent those cognitive biases we know we’re prone to. We just do a complete shit job of teaching people how to use those systems.
tl;dr version: maybe there is a connection between racism and mental illness in some individuals, there are certainly people who are both mentally ill and racist, but there are people who are mentally ill and not racist and vice versa. At any rate, this isn’t a discussion which will be fruitful here.
Below is my personal experience with what I believe to be a case of connection between mental illness and racism:
My ex has an assortment of issues including perserveration and obsession – and one of the things that has been the focus of his compulsive (I believe) behaviours has been “race” differences in intelligence. He became a compulsive racist. He read widely from extremely dubious texts and websites and became increasingly unable to discern the difference between the pseudo-scientific (bad enough) and the outright manufactured ‘evidence’ – though occasionally I was able to re-direct him from the worst sources.
He was also unable to stop talking about it, so for a period of a couple of years I was subjected to regular rants on this topic – and he would become angry and abusive (though I also believe these rants were abusive in themselves) if I asked him to stop, told him it made me uncomfortable or challenged him on the racism aspect (like I said, he would occasionally be open to a challenge of particular sources on methodological grounds, but not on the core philosophy). So for example I was able to stop him harping on about how hard done by James Watson was by pointing out that Watson hadn’t been very scientific and that the ‘evidence’ he produced on how much lesser black people are was anecdotal, limited and thus subject to confirmation bias – and that he deserved excoriation for that reason alone. But dismissing Watson as simply a racist fuck would have led to more and more ranting and shouting, criticism of me and accusations. I am talking about days where every meal was dominated by ex’s lectures on these topics and where any media mention might also trigger a monologue. For my own sanity, I needed to manage this obsession in the best way I could.
So, I do believe that my ex’s rampant racism and his obsession with it is partly a product of his psychological state, but I also think that if he hadn’t been at least a bit racist to start with this probably wouldn’t have been the focus of his obsessions. But who knows? He had obsessions about other topics, too – many of them I found really annoying and uncomfortable, but the racist one was just so awful because 1) it was just so awful but 2) I felt bound to challenge it, but that wasn’t really a safe way of operating with him – particularly as my own predisposition to depression and the situational depression of living with someone like that was becoming a negative spiral where I felt increasingly voiceless. My own mental illness certainly led me to ‘tolerate’ that shit, because I didn’t see any other viable options.
Diagnosis of a disease is not a matter of opinion, unless you are a doctor.
Being an asshole is not a disease. When I was a child, before puberty, i had problems truly feeling empathy, for whatever reason (I have no idea. Maybe because I may be a bit autistic, which is being investigated. It got better when I reached 13. Now I am even a bit hypersensitive, crying over small problems from complete strangers). I didnt feel the suffering of others in my skin, unless I was going to get in trouble for it. Still, as I am not an asshole and was well educated, I knew what I should or should not do, so I apologized, hugged, shared my toys, etc, and rarely ever hurt anyone, in fact, I was the class’ punching bag and everyone was baffled by how patient I was. Even though I felt nothing, I logically thought “I don’t care, but I know I SHOULD care for their wellbeing, so I will fake it till I make it”, and well, I did. I don’t know if it was a disorder, but if it was I am glad I was not diagnosed, because, guess what, being convinced that I was a monster would make me worse, not better. If I heard “you feel nothing, so you are evil, and will do evil things”, I’d probably go “really? Oh, ok, I will!”. And that’s what you are doing, you are removing their agency.
Actually, in my honest opinion, acting about something unfair just because it makes you feel bad is more selfish than acting about it even when you are uncapable of feeling anything.
So, yeah, as others said, screw you. This kind of talk is not helpful for anyone, in any case, and even IF they are sick, even if therapy makes them feel things, only theirselves can make a conscious effort at being good. You’re not helping them, us, anyone, only yourself, by thinking you are biologically uncapable of doing the same and that a couple pills can stop bigotry.
NO.
Yet you freaking are.
See?! SEE?!? That’s my whole point. It doesn’t matter that you love and care about that person. Having feelings doesn’t stop you for being a jerk, just as not having feelings doesn’t MAKE YOU a jerk. Having feelings for this person doesn’t give you a “nice guy” card.
Honestly, you have been to this site several times and you know very well this behavior is unnacceptable. Even if you don’t agree (could it be -DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNN – lack of sympathy?), you must follow the policy. Stop sticking your finger in the power outlet, we are not finding it cute.
If we could only turn every MRA white for a day, then… oh wait.
Can someone invent a machine that turns white supremacists black?
Here’s a few guesses as to why people are prejudiced against any marginalized group:
— They come from a prejudiced family and have been well and truly indoctrinated into their family’s beliefs.
— They feel threatened by what’s different and Those People Over There just aren’t like them.
— They fear they are losing their privilege as marginalized groups gain rights and have trouble coping with that.
— They need a scapegoat to pin their hard times on. Ex. “Those Mexicans took our jobs.” “All poor people want is government handouts while I’m here working my tail off.”
— They don’t even realize they’re carrying around a few prejudiced views thanks to the society they’ve been raised in. They’re essentially good people who will do some soul searching when someone bothers to point out they’re being prejudiced.
No mental illness required.
> Imaginary Petal
I am not sure albinos would appreciate that…
On Topic : but, yes, maybe if white supremacists had all the problems which are coming with albinism, maybe they would stop to call themselves white. Calling yourself white just because you think it is the opposite of being black is not your best move, dear “white” supremacist…
To me this just means “hug a Jew.” This is a great idea, if the Jews in question are comfortable with being hugged. To all our Jewish readers and commentators: Hugs!
Neo-Nazis might use it to mean something else, but they’re Neo-Nazis so fuck them.
@rugbyyogi
You can be glad that he is your ex now. I couldn’t imagine a more horrible (life) than a life with someone who is an obsessive racist, ranting about evo psych and other pseudo-science all day long.
It could (maybe) only get worse if he would be a sexist on top of that.
You can be glad that you’re out of there.
Ha ha – @KafkaNoMore – definitely sexist on top of it!!! And he reads all the MRA bullshit stuff and watches their youtube videos, etc. It was awful, awful. Now I just need to get strong enough to make sure that my son sees less of him than he does. It’s not good for my son to be there 3 days of the week in that environment. But it’s definitely good for me not to be in it 24/7
I have to agree with Kat, at first I thought it was at least something to do with a vagina
Welp, after reading rugbyyogi’s story, I’ll have a little more patience when my mom* re-starts her never-ending ranting about invasive species. I really, really, really don’t want to hear about how evil amur maples and English sparrows are any more, but it could be so much worse.
*who has autism
@Nequam:
Blue Meanie: Are you… bluish? You don’t look bluish.