Aside from it being unacceptable…
Who would blame totally blowing up their job on diabetes? Wouldn’t that just be the complete guarantee that you were not capable of performing that job? You’d think if a truck driver crashed a truck they’d go to every extent possible to avoid any discussion of it having anything to do with diabetes even if it actually did…
If we are honest with ourselves we all are closet racist, people of all colors are racist, it is human nature to view those that appear different than ones self differently. The best that anyone can do is to admit it to him or her self and take positive steps to overcome our racist nature.
The cancel culture infuriates me, it is a powerful culture war tool that can ruin a persons life and career over one moment in time with no chance for redress. If not for this culture perhaps this gentleman might not have felt the need to make up a silly excuse.
I think we should all speak for ourselves here. I refute this 100%. If you were raised to view things as you indicated then that would be the case. Hate and racism are learned behaviors. So you’re charge assumes everyone was taught hate and racism. I wasn’t.
Viewing someone as different than you doesn’t equate to racism. It equates to realizing the vast beauty of the human species… Unless you were taught to view it as something other than that.
Racism: the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity. Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities.
False and learned behaviors and beliefs.
I really do not wish to argue racism here, this is not the place. I apologize if I have offended you. If you really are true to your upbringing and have not been affected by the racism around you I commend you.
We will have too agree to disagree, this is the last I will say on this subject.
I actually misspoke… Being raised as a Jehovah’s Witness I actually did learn hate, wrapped and masked in a cloak of purity and righteousness (mostly self righteousness). I learned what i later came to realize was hate for anyone not a JW basically. Hate toward homosexuals and other groups of people that didn’t align with their religious dogma.
I realized for myself early on that I’m no better than anyone else and I’ll be judge and jury to noone who is different than me… Looks differently, talks differently, believes differently, whatever. I ran away from home multiple times to get away from that brainwashing mentality. Eventually, I ended up leaving home for good (after running away four times previously) at the ripe young age of 17 and living in an abandoned barn for a year until i joined the Army.
So, i was exposed to elitism, not necessarily racism… But they believed they were “chosen” and all other people were evil. I escaped and used my own brain (something that the JW religion doesn’t like it’s followers doing).
Who i am today is to some extent despite my upbringing. At some point we all have to see that our parents might have just been ignorant and wrong in what they forced us to learn as children. We all have free will and can think and see for ourselves, truth.
I choose to believe all people are equal despite the things that make them different… Even though my childhood went against that mentality.
I said I would discuss this no more but your last post makes me believe we agree much more than we disagree we are just not speaking in the same terms.
I still believe this is not the place but I would like to have further discussion with you, perhaps in private message. I think it would be good for both of us.
I have no problem discussing it openly. More people should talk openly and frankly about racism. It’s been swept under the rug and overlooked for far too long.
Only by talking about and realizing it exists can we collectively hope to change the minds and hearts of others.
The Asian racism happening now is a prime example of what happens when hate is fostered like a germ in a petri dish.
Maybe a lounge discussion, though.
@Gary You sound like me in some conversations I’ve had. With no intention of excusing racist attitudes or actions in any way or form: We’re taught from birth to differentiate based on color, size, shape, what we like, what we don’t like, sour, sweet, texture…the list goes on and on. Once again, it’s how we use and apply the differences and the effects of those uses have that counts. Some are very beneficial, some innocuous, some hurtful, and some are devastating to others and ourselves. And some, like this one, are just trying to get out from under…
Two books of interest on this topic, both compelling reads:
Caste by Isobel Wilkerson
Diabetes: A history of race and disease by Arleen Marcia Tuchman