To think that no racist ever admits they are a racist

[Sweetiedarling7]

“I’m not a racist but…”
I hear this so often. Does any racist ever come out and say they are a racist?
I don’t think so.

I agree OP.

You haven’t travelled much then. The idea that racism is abnormal or to be ashamed of is not a very widespread belief globally.

The idea that it’s nothing to be ashamed of is abhorrent.

Anyone who makes a racist comment or has a racist thought is a racist, imo.

However if it was through lack of knowledge and they change once they learn, then they can stop being racist. 😊

For example I used the term gypsy to describe someone. My meaning was that I understood that she was a lady who sells rabbits feet / lavender and gives spiritual advice.... also that she travels around in her caravan

My son said that using the term gypsy can be perceived to be a racial slur so its better to use the word traveller. I don't use the word gypsy any more at all (just in case)

My neighbour (who votes Reform🙄🥺!) tells anyone who will listen, that she is racist. She says she's proud to be racist

😡😡🤢😡😡

Sure, abhorrent but normal.

Our culture is the abnormal one here.

Travellers are a different group of people from gypsies. Gypsies called the people who travel around with fairs ‘the traveling folk’. They call themselves gypsies, not travellers and are clear on the distinction.

Hmm, @GeneralPeter, I’m wondering if you are trying to normalise racism?

”Famine has been a normal part of life for most of human history”

”wtf, can’t believe you support famine!?!”

Wha if you you don’t like the values of a certain community that predominantly included people with a different skin colour

Are you racist then?
Does it depend on the specific words said when being negative about values?

I think my son meant that many Eastern European Romanis perceive the word gypsy to be a racial slur. And where I live (Wales) there are a large number of people whose home of birth is EE

Presumably Roma people would rather be called Roma.

The Gypsy people I know do not want to be called travellers and would take pretty short shrift at people patting themselves on the back for ‘not being racist’ for refusing to use the word gypsies use to describe themselves. Gypsy is not an insult, and it’s insulting to gypsies to say it is.

Sorry, I really want to hammer this point home. Saying ‘Gypsy’ is an insult is like saying calling someone Irish or Gay is an insult. It’s only an insult if you think there is something ‘wrong’ with that group of people.

Its not anti-racist to say it’s an insult to call someone a gypsy, it’s racist to refuse to use that term ( of gypsies, it’s just polite to use it accurately)

Thank you. Thats very interesting as its the opposite of what my son said (he's 26 and i very often take his advice about this sort of thing, doesnt mean that hes always right, tho!). I'll do some reading around the subject. 🥰

Hmmm.

I’ve tended to find that people who are not racist, do not feel compelled to say “I’m not racist but…” in any context, so in itself that phrase is a tell.

If you're automatically assuming that people have "certain values" because they have a different skin colour, then that makes you racist.

If you're automatically assuming that people have "certain values" because they belong to a particular community, then that makes you prejudiced against that community.

I don't assume that all Christians have the same values as each other. I don't assume that all white people have the same values as each other. I don't assume that all British people have the same values as each other.

If you're lumping everyone from a particular community together and making assumptions about what they're like, then you're a bigot and frankly a bit stupid.

The obvious contemporary example of people being racist but refusing to acknowledge it, is anti-Semitism ( which is racism against Jews obvs). Open anti-Jewish racism, often violent in rhetoric and action, has been rebranded as a social justice virtue. Just like so many racists throughout history, these racists think their own special brand of racism is justified and rational.

Of course, repeating longstanding anti-Semitic tropes word for word and simply replacing the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Zionist’ makes these people feel their racism is especially justified. Even when Jews doing normal Jewish things in UK, USA and Australia are murdered thanks to the ‘anti-Zionist’ messages being spread.

If you are looking for racists who don’t think they are racist, it’s this lot you need to be looking at.

It’s an undeniable link. Wonder why? 😁

100 times yes.
The last socially acceptable form of racism.

I dislike the OP’s post for the same reason I dislike the “no one ever admits to being a transphobe” style.

It’s blinkered and smug. All OP is inviting is lots of people to come and congratulate her and themselves on being one of the good ones.

And it’s worse than the transphobe example, because it’s so plainly false. You have to be pretty cocooned to think the most overt racism in the world is people who say they aren’t but disagree with your politics on this or that.

Are you suggesting all right wing young men are a homogenous mass, with no degree as to their extremity? Or would you allow for the possibility that your 'they' and mine are different people, with different life experience and different motivations? That I know my 'they' from living amongst them and hearing them first hand, as a politically aware, white WC woman in a Reform town? That when I come to cast my vote, its not your 'they' I'm thinking about, given they have no representation on the ballot paper, unlike Reform who my 'they' can and clearly do, vote for.
I don't discount your worries about those even further to the right. However rather than thinking we're past the point of no return and so should throw in the towel and accept more 'moderate' forms of racism for fear of making racists worse, I think we need to look at what has caused the rise and address that. I'm sure your 'they' are playing a major role, but their propaganda is only taking hold because of the socio economic discontent of their target audience. Disadvantage almost always offers fertile ground for the right and their racist scapegoating. Which is why better educated, more advantaged people are more likely to be liberal/left.

Yes, I think this is a very relevant point. All these people on Hamas support marches are probably also the ones on here drowning on about intent doesn’t matter, it’s about how people feel. Yet despite Jewish communities constantly saying they find these marches hateful and intimidating this is irrelevant- someone needs to think about the poor Gazan babies (just not the poor Israeli babies killed on Oct 7 or the implications for Jews as the useful idiots bleet “from the river to the sea”. No they’re all sat there, holier than thou, because they’re too stupid to go away, and as they keep telling others to do, reflect hard and deep on their actions and views.

Like it or not, support those marches, support Hamas, directly, or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously you’re racist you’ve just naively bought into the idea some racism is ok.

What if the migrants are also the racists?

The idea that other races or religions are inferior is far less common in the UK than in most countries in the world.

If you want to increase the number of people here who think that, immigration from those places will do that.

And this also applies to white people feeling that way. . Contrary to popular belief it's not only white people that are the perpetrators of racism

Anyone who has been to the far east can often verify that

The coloration between wealth/education and liberal views is often presented as an “if only you were clever and not an undeserving poor person this is how you would think” is probably yet another example of bigotry a certain group think is ok.

Just let’s stop and think how this could have happened. We could go back to a bunch of bored upper class Victorians desperate to be a bit edgy and piss off Daddy (eventually leading to the Fabian Society), the infiltration and enforcement of leftist ideology in universities brain washing lots of people going through them,if you wanted to push an ideology what better way than to access a group of vulnerable young adults, often away from home and hometown/family influences for the first time looking to establish their own identities. Then peer pressure sets in, including on Mumsnet, other social media. - often driven by groups targeting the aspirational - the trope is, if you want to be seen as intelligent, middle class, kind, perfect, then think XYZ. If you disagree be prepared to be ostracised because you’re not one of us. Don’t even begin to question the irony of this because then you’re not intelligent and you’re on your own (unless, of course you want to join with the uneducated, and god forbid, white poor people)

The ridiculous group think from those reading off the barn conversion (with John Lewis interior) wall is laughable.

I realise that that doesn't sit easily with right wing people, given its their own ideology that leads to the less advantaged finding life difficult in the first place, and its their own parties that have stirred up racial tension by using immigrants as scapegoats.

Let’s compare ideological left and right wing governments shall we, and how immiserated their less advantaged were, and how their minorities and outsiders have been treated.

There is plenty of shame on both sides. But it seems a specifically left-wing cruelty to believe the harms done by their own side “don’t count.”