Some thoughts on spotting racists after they found their way into my replies the last few days. I'm sharing because I see some people who I've never seen post anything racist following racist accounts. Benefit of the doubt, maybe they don't have the skills to spot a modern racist.
Rhetoric: The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.
That is the difference between a modern vocal racist and what many picture. They aren't happy to just be amongst themselves anymore. They are actively working on how they communicate to market their cause and beliefs to outsiders. They know which aspects of their beliefs to lead with and which to keep to themselves until later. It is active and intentional to create a slippery slope for people they are targeting.
You can't change them but you can take a moment to understand how your mind works and how they exploit it to begin bringing you into their world.
Top down vs bottom up reasoning. You will default to one or the other, you can overcome your default but it requires conscious effortful thought.
Most neurotypical people view the world via top down reasoning by default. This means that they see a forest and their brain fills in that it must be made of individual trees. They don't really see the trees. A fake tree won't be spotted unless it is super obvious or they are carefully looking.
Most neurodivergent people see the world bottom up. They see trees and if they see enough in one place their brain fills in that it must be a forest. This makes it easier to spot out of place things in the forest, though I admit it has downsides not relevant to this conversation. This is why autistic people are stereotyped for their attention to detail. They literally see details that are invisible to neurotypical people.
So back to the rhetoric. They know that you won't identify as a racist (forest) on day one. You want to be a meadow because most of society dislikes forests. So they hook you on a shallow racist belief, maybe something you don't even realize has ties to racist ideas. I'm not a racist but... I'm a meadow but there is this one bush or small tree.
Top down thinking allows you to see a field with a few trees on it because they are small details that would upset your top level view that this is a field. Bottom up thinking says that's a tree so that can't be a field.
In that way they will try to plant one small racist belief at a time, but slowly in a way that allows you to keep saying "I'm not a racist but" until one day you wake up and all the grass is gone.
Step 1 that I see over and over is attempting to use your kindness against you to get into your circle. Excluding me for being racist would be discrimination, you aren't a bigot are you? "I'm not a racist but I have a couple of racist friends." Next they'll start to push the community and family first aspects, with the quiet part being white community and white family but we'll get to that later. Who wants to break up families and local communities, not me, but they'll pretend they have a monopoly on valuing those things. So on and so on 1 little thing at a time.
Each tree or bush you let them plant drops seeds they can water later. This is why effective defenses come from a hard line drawn to exclude them from your life. If you keep company with racists you can't be friends with certain other people, I'm one of those other people. So, let a racist in and lose another friend. Repeat a few times and next thing you know all your friends are racists.
I'm watching who follows who as I inevitably get brigaded for this post. If you are the person following them letting them into my WoT, be warned that unfollows and blocks are coming. Choose the company you keep wisely. Depending how annoyed I feel in a couple of days I may or may not name and shame with a public list of who among my follows is still causing a problem.
Rhetoric: The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.
That is the difference between a modern vocal racist and what many picture. They aren't happy to just be amongst themselves anymore. They are actively working on how they communicate to market their cause and beliefs to outsiders. They know which aspects of their beliefs to lead with and which to keep to themselves until later. It is active and intentional to create a slippery slope for people they are targeting.
You can't change them but you can take a moment to understand how your mind works and how they exploit it to begin bringing you into their world.
Top down vs bottom up reasoning. You will default to one or the other, you can overcome your default but it requires conscious effortful thought.
Most neurotypical people view the world via top down reasoning by default. This means that they see a forest and their brain fills in that it must be made of individual trees. They don't really see the trees. A fake tree won't be spotted unless it is super obvious or they are carefully looking.
Most neurodivergent people see the world bottom up. They see trees and if they see enough in one place their brain fills in that it must be a forest. This makes it easier to spot out of place things in the forest, though I admit it has downsides not relevant to this conversation. This is why autistic people are stereotyped for their attention to detail. They literally see details that are invisible to neurotypical people.
So back to the rhetoric. They know that you won't identify as a racist (forest) on day one. You want to be a meadow because most of society dislikes forests. So they hook you on a shallow racist belief, maybe something you don't even realize has ties to racist ideas. I'm not a racist but... I'm a meadow but there is this one bush or small tree.
Top down thinking allows you to see a field with a few trees on it because they are small details that would upset your top level view that this is a field. Bottom up thinking says that's a tree so that can't be a field.
In that way they will try to plant one small racist belief at a time, but slowly in a way that allows you to keep saying "I'm not a racist but" until one day you wake up and all the grass is gone.
Step 1 that I see over and over is attempting to use your kindness against you to get into your circle. Excluding me for being racist would be discrimination, you aren't a bigot are you? "I'm not a racist but I have a couple of racist friends." Next they'll start to push the community and family first aspects, with the quiet part being white community and white family but we'll get to that later. Who wants to break up families and local communities, not me, but they'll pretend they have a monopoly on valuing those things. So on and so on 1 little thing at a time.
Each tree or bush you let them plant drops seeds they can water later. This is why effective defenses come from a hard line drawn to exclude them from your life. If you keep company with racists you can't be friends with certain other people, I'm one of those other people. So, let a racist in and lose another friend. Repeat a few times and next thing you know all your friends are racists.
I'm watching who follows who as I inevitably get brigaded for this post. If you are the person following them letting them into my WoT, be warned that unfollows and blocks are coming. Choose the company you keep wisely. Depending how annoyed I feel in a couple of days I may or may not name and shame with a public list of who among my follows is still causing a problem.
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