(UPDATE by Liza: Chris Chinn has claimed this text as the work of his genius. You can find the whole post at LiveJournal.)

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Yesterday I posted Part 1 of The Art of Defending Racism. Fitting for a Martin Luther King day discussion, here is its concluding section.

The Art of Defending Racism : Advanced Tactics!

The Russian Retreat (Be like Water)
Naturally, anyone who attempts to call you on a racist behavior, will probably try to also refute your defense. Fortunately for you, when your defense isn't based on actual reasons, but simply irrationality, you can switch tactics on the drop of a dime without any explanation.

Simply switch from one defense to another, randomly, and let your opponent continue to wear themselves out trying to penetrate your happy wall of racist belief!

For additional fun, you can switch to a tactic you've used previously. Half of them will not even notice they've been led in a circle, the other half will lose all hope and give up! Hurrah for ignorance!

The Wall of Whiteness
As the Greeks knew, the key to a good defense was teamwork. If you have more than one person supporting racism involved in the conversation, then all of you should use different tactics simultaneously --your opponent will have to fight on multiple fronts, and have to keep switching his or her train of thought to meet each defense. They'll wear out in no time, and, you can reinforce and protect each other's 3 beliefs.

Judas is your friend (when you're Roman)
You may be fortunate enough to have rallied POC allies in racism. They replace "I" with "My white friends", and they're just as willing to defend you as another white person. These allies are pure gold.

They lend credibility to your defense that you're not racist, and what you've done isn't racist. Instead of simply wearing out your opponents, these
allies will completely demoralize them and wound them to the heart, opening them easily for the kill.

The Theory of it all
The best part of irrational behavior, is that you don't need to understand a lick of it. But some of you may wish to further your studies on the path of racism, so it's best to be armed with the theory
behind the tactics. Luckily, in our modern era, the information is but a few keystrokes away:

Wikipedia on Denial
Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evident. The subject may deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether (simple denial), admit the fact but deny its seriousness (minimization) or admit both the
fact and seriousness but deny responsibility (transference).

Denial of responsibility
This form of denial involves avoiding personal responsibility by blaming, minimizing or justifying. Blaming is a direct statement shifting culpability and may overlap with denial of fact. Minimizing is
an attempt to make the effects or results of an action appear to be less harmful than they may actually be. Justifying is when someone takes a choice and attempts to make that choice look okay due to their perception of what is "right" in a situation. Someone using denial of responsibility is usually attempting to avoid potential harm or pain by shifting attention away from themselves.

Denial of impact
Denial of impact involves a person avoiding thinking about or understanding the harms their behavior have caused to themselves or others. By doing this, that person is able to avoid feeling a sense of guilt and it can prevent that person from developing remorse or empathy for others. Denial of impact reduces or eliminates a sense of pain or harm from poor decisions.

Denial of awareness
This type of denial is best discussed by looking at the concept of state dependent learning[1]. People using this type of denial will avoid pain and harm by stating they were in a different state of awareness (such as alcohol or drug intoxication or on occasion mental health related). This type of denial often overlaps with denial of responsibility.

Denial of cycle
Many who use this type of denial will say things such as, "it just happened." Denial of cycle is where a person avoids looking at their decisions leading up to an event or does not consider their pattern of decision making and how harmful behavior is repeated. The pain and harm being avoided by this type of denial is more of the effort needed to
change the focus from a singular event to looking at preceding events. It can also serve as a way to blame or justify behavior (see above).

Denial of denial
This can be a difficult concept for many people to identify in themselves, but is a major barrier to changing hurtful behaviors. Denial of denial involves thoughts, actions and behaviors which bolster confidence that nothing needs to be changed in ones personal behavior. This form of denial typically overlaps with all of the other forms of
denial, but involves more self-delusion.

Remember, ignorance doesn't just maintain itself! Only with your hard work and diligent efforts can we keep hate alive!

But if you weaken
You have help, even when you aren't working hard, or are momentarily oblivious to the need to be diligent in your defense of racism. During those lapses, you don't have to work too hard, because your social, political and economic, not to mention religious institutions are all constructed to let racism continue to flourish with only minimum
attention from you as an individual and, even if you weaken in your efforts, your institutions are prepared to help you keep your beliefs, to validate them and perpetuate them.