The Art of Defending Racism, Part 1

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

###

This is so good, I had to repost here. This was posted at finy : Message: FWD: The Art of Defending Racism. The poster, T. Raisul Murray, says it is mostly anonymous with some parts added by him and a friend.

The whole thing is brilliant, especially the "Opression Olympics" section he added.

****

The Art of Defending Racism

Doing something racist is easy- you don't even have to think about it. But keeping racism alive? That takes work!

Luckily for you, racism is deeply entrenched in our society, so all you need to do is hold the gates against those who would try to dislodge it, and let them wear themselves out. You'll want to use the tactics listed below to protect your own racist behavior, as well as those of others- after all- racism works because we work together!

Winning the war against equality!
No matter what, your objective is to be able to maintain these three beliefs at the end of any exchange:

  1. I'm not racist.
  2. I didn't do anything wrong.
  3. I don't have to change at all.

If you can hold on to that, then you win!

How it works
Like a drinking problem or drug habit, racism works best when no one is willing to talk about it, and even better, when everyone works together to cover up the problem.

The most important thing is to make sure that you can hide your problem from yourself- it's key in maintaining those 3 beliefs that will keep you racist for a lifetime!

Saying or doing something racist will come naturally to you- but defending it? You'll want to use one of the following tactics.

They're listed from the more soft handed and defensive tactics to the most aggressive, giving you a full range of options! Don't worry, whether
you're liberal, conservative, in the closet racist, or tattooed and ready for Rahowa, there's something here for you!

Tactical options:

  1. It's not that serious
    • We didn't know better (and we never will)
    • You're too sensitive
    • It's not a big deal because it's just (a movie, a song, a book, words, etc.)
    • Why should we care? (You don't matter anyway)
    • We didn't mean any harm (But we'll do it again)
    • I was drunk on klanschlager/high on nazi-X/taking Xanax
  2. But!
    • POC do XYZ to themselves (so it's ok that we also do XYZ)
    • I'm oppressed too!
    • Hey! Look at sexism/classicism/Global Warming! Diversion
    • [ INSERT POC'S NAME ] says it's cool
    • POC can discriminate too!
    • What about reverse racism?
    • We're not discriminating AS MUCH (as other people/as we used to), isn't that good?!? Give me a cookie.
    • My best friend/spouse/adopted child/my ancestor 5 generations back is POC
    • I've done XYZ, which proves I'm not racist, and I get a free pass for anything else I do.
  3. Dismissal!
    • You're oppressing me by making me be "PC"
    • You're too stupid to be in this conversation and everything you say doesn't matter
    • Racism is over now
    • If we don't talk about it, it'll magically go away
    • Under my definition- it's not racist
    • You're too angry/You're being irrational
    • Racism has always existed, we can't fix it, you should stop complaining.
  4. Threats
    • Be glad it isn't worse, we could be doing XYZ/I'll give you a reason to cry
    • You brought this on yourself/ If you people didn't... XYZ
    • Go back to where you came from!
  5. Oppression Olympics
    • The Jews had the Holocaust and look at them.
    • The Irish were the slaves of Europe and look at them now
    • My grandparents came to this country and they didn't speak English and they made it (which is equivalent to saying, "My ancestors didn't own slaves, they came here during the Depression)

More to come tomorrow at Part 2


liza's picture

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mole333's picture

Careful...

You might just spoil someone's MLK day.


karnythia's picture

Give credit to the author

This is not an anonymous piece. It was written by an Livejournal user by the name of yeloson. He posted it in his LJ and in the LJ commmunity sex_and_race. Please give credit where it is due.


Chris Chinn's picture

Hi! I'm the author!

Hi,

I was totally unaware that my article had made the rounds online! Thanks for the repost, though I'd like to add that the full original, (complete with extra snark for fun) can be found here:

http://community.livejournal.com/sex_and_race/296541.html

If you see it floating around, could you toss folks the link?

Thanks!

Chris


liza's picture

THAT IS AWESOME

Hi Chris,

This is Liza, the publisher. Thanks for stopping by and letting us know you are the author. I will definitely update with a link back to your journal.

If you ever feel like cross-posting over here, just drop me a line through the "contact the author" link.

Cheers,
liza


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