First of all, to be perfectly clear, I have no intention of defending this person. As far as I can tell from your description, they’re probably a raging racist.
Regardless, I think the discussion around where the line between stupidity and racism goes is an interesting one. In my mind, racism requires malice: It requires that you actually see some group as less worth than others, or otherwise dislike or hate them. The counter-example (which I’ve actually met in the wild once) is a person that genuinely believes that some group is less adept in some way, but that still argues that they have the same inherent worth as others.
To put it bluntly, it’s not controversial to say that some people are smarter/taller/stronger/faster etc. than others, while still acknowledging that all human life has the same inherent value. Does it make someone a racist if they hold that stance, combined with a belief that <insert group> is less adept at <insert skill/property>? I would argue not, because (as previously stated) in my mind racism implies that you believe some people are inherently worth more than others, and that belief is not really tied to any measurable property. Basically, I think a true racist uses “they don’t have a soul/ are less intelligent / etc.” as a post-hoc justification for a hatred they already hold.
I experienced both benevolent and antagonistic racism as a brown kid in the south.
The antagonistic racism was never so much like, get out of here, you darky, or calling me names or anything, although I have been called a “plains n-word” by an old white fuck in South Dakota, so there’s that.
But the antagonistic racism I most commonly experienced was being followed around stores.
So much so that it gave me a complex. It happened so often that I would go to a grocery store, or to some retailer, and I would be browsing around, and the people that worked there, which were always white people, would check in on me constantly, always watching me, following me around, staying six to ten feet away from me at times throughout my entire sojourn through the establishment.
But I, being a young kid, didn’t find any malice in this. I just thought, oh, maybe, I don’t know, maybe they’re time travelers, and I’m gonna be so awesome in the future that this is their opportunity to see me without changing the timeline.
But getting away from the south and magically the following me around in the stores thing completely and totally stopped so abruptly that it made me reevaluate what was going on. I’m like, oh no, they were watching the darkie because they thought he was gonna steal shit from them.
But on the flip side, I also got benevolent racism where they thought I was better than them because I was a Native American. They would ask me things like, can you actually talk to horses? And what’s it like being able to control the wind?
And what sucks is I’m really good with animals, so to some degree I could talk to horses and they would just sort of get me, but it’s not like I could understand what they were saying.
And the very first time I ever fired a bow and arrow I hit a bullseye.
So the instructor was like, if you do it one time, it’s luck, you do it two times, it’s skill, so I fired again and I hit another bullseye.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about. I’m sorry for the crap you experienced, and I think it’s good of you to be able to recognise the naive and/or positively loaded presuppositions people have for what they are. Honestly, I think it’s way too common that people will interpret others in the worst possible way, and see slights where none was intended. It looks like you’ve been able to do the opposite, and interpret others in the best possible way, and I think that makes the world a far better place!
First of all, to be perfectly clear, I have no intention of defending this person. As far as I can tell from your description, they’re probably a raging racist.
Regardless, I think the discussion around where the line between stupidity and racism goes is an interesting one. In my mind, racism requires malice: It requires that you actually see some group as less worth than others, or otherwise dislike or hate them. The counter-example (which I’ve actually met in the wild once) is a person that genuinely believes that some group is less adept in some way, but that still argues that they have the same inherent worth as others.
To put it bluntly, it’s not controversial to say that some people are smarter/taller/stronger/faster etc. than others, while still acknowledging that all human life has the same inherent value. Does it make someone a racist if they hold that stance, combined with a belief that <insert group> is less adept at <insert skill/property>? I would argue not, because (as previously stated) in my mind racism implies that you believe some people are inherently worth more than others, and that belief is not really tied to any measurable property. Basically, I think a true racist uses “they don’t have a soul/ are less intelligent / etc.” as a post-hoc justification for a hatred they already hold.
I experienced both benevolent and antagonistic racism as a brown kid in the south.
The antagonistic racism was never so much like, get out of here, you darky, or calling me names or anything, although I have been called a “plains n-word” by an old white fuck in South Dakota, so there’s that.
But the antagonistic racism I most commonly experienced was being followed around stores.
So much so that it gave me a complex. It happened so often that I would go to a grocery store, or to some retailer, and I would be browsing around, and the people that worked there, which were always white people, would check in on me constantly, always watching me, following me around, staying six to ten feet away from me at times throughout my entire sojourn through the establishment.
But I, being a young kid, didn’t find any malice in this. I just thought, oh, maybe, I don’t know, maybe they’re time travelers, and I’m gonna be so awesome in the future that this is their opportunity to see me without changing the timeline.
But getting away from the south and magically the following me around in the stores thing completely and totally stopped so abruptly that it made me reevaluate what was going on. I’m like, oh no, they were watching the darkie because they thought he was gonna steal shit from them.
But on the flip side, I also got benevolent racism where they thought I was better than them because I was a Native American. They would ask me things like, can you actually talk to horses? And what’s it like being able to control the wind?
And what sucks is I’m really good with animals, so to some degree I could talk to horses and they would just sort of get me, but it’s not like I could understand what they were saying.
And the very first time I ever fired a bow and arrow I hit a bullseye.
So the instructor was like, if you do it one time, it’s luck, you do it two times, it’s skill, so I fired again and I hit another bullseye.
So you know, I’m doing my ancestors proud.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about. I’m sorry for the crap you experienced, and I think it’s good of you to be able to recognise the naive and/or positively loaded presuppositions people have for what they are. Honestly, I think it’s way too common that people will interpret others in the worst possible way, and see slights where none was intended. It looks like you’ve been able to do the opposite, and interpret others in the best possible way, and I think that makes the world a far better place!