As non american I always felt that Thanksgiving is such a wholesome holiday until the class warfare kicked in and ruined it for everyone huh
Gets worse once some beer and whiskey enter the equation.
Pretty sure he just thinks you’re a removed.
its either POLITICS, Rs vs Ds. or comparing income, career or lack thereof if your asian you would hear this every chance your at an outing with cousins. im dreading it tomorrow for that reasons.
I give you permission to lie to these petty assholes that are related to you through happenstance.
The racist uncle knows how absurd this would sound. That’s why they use the term “woke” instead.
Fun trick: when somenone does this, ask “Woke? What does that mean?” and watch them struggle to explain why basic human decency is the worst thing ever.
But only because they’ve appropriated the word and twisted it into a derogatory word.
“Woke” has been tarnished, but originally it just meant being alert to social and racial injustice.
Interestingly, it comes from African American vernacular and dates back to the 1930s.
It’s like using “enlightenment” as a negative term.
It hasn’t been tarnished at all. They simply dislike exactly what it has stood for since its proliferation from the 60s civil rights era.
It really was not a popular term. Ironically, they are the ones who ended up appropriating it and making it popular.
Its been a term used in civil rights activists circles for more than 50 years.
I don’t think you get the meaning of popular.
In private company they call you slurs behind your back
The modern red-hat wearer would probably use terms like woke, libtard, communist, etc.
But, I would bet that if this same kind of confrontation happened a quarter century ago, the conservatives might be saying “He’s super irrational and emotional”. Like, I think conservatives believe that they see the world as it is, and that liberals are blind to the realities of life. They believe that liberals want to change the world, but don’t understand that it is the way it is for a good reason.
It’s similar to how when women were campaigning for the right to vote, men who didn’t support hat would say things like “I love my wife, but she’s a woman so she’s not capable of making the hard choices.” Or, “My mother is a wonderful person, and full of love, but her emotion clouds her judgment.” Or, “I love my daughter, but she’s too unstable, she jumps on any new trend, running a country requires a steady hand.”
Yes, the reality is that the racist uncle is super racist. But, it’s still worth trying to understand how they see the world. If for no other reason than it’s easier to defeat your enemy if you understand them.
Nothing about this post implies that they don’t understand how they see the world. The second panel does not imply any misunderstanding.
That is to say that I fully believe that they simply think cruelty and unfairness is the right way due to dehumanization of people they dislike/consider the out group.
My brother is super conservative, and is pro gun, and antivax. He thinks he is allowed to shoot people to defend him, and his family(which is illegal in canada). While I am super liberal, and my views are total opposite. Hope his children decide to be better than them when they get older.
oh an ammosexual, those love to fantasize about shooting people, and they are extra anxious around using a gun.
just look how they act around kamala, its either “i dont like her, she doesnt have any plans, or shes not very good” you can bet they means shes a woman on “pms, and shes black and women cant be leader”
The irony is that conservatives think they are “rational” and left leaning people are “emotional”. Like no, almost none of your positions are backed by research and data to be good. Conservatives think higher education is a liberal conspiracy so it’s not surprising.
it’s still worth trying to understand how they see the world.
I am screaming from the rooftops that we need to do this. We need to stop avoiding confrontation and start getting all up in each other’s business again. Leaving people to stew in their atomized world-views is why we have flat earthers and nazis marching around.
The thing is, they’re all just as insecure and scared as you. It’s just like a dog though, in that a dog who’s scared will bark at strangers and bare their fangs. Your racist uncle will say “libtard woke etc etc” and beat his chest and talk about guns and freedom.
But he also wants to not be scared. He also wants to be understood and accepted. He’s just too fucking dumb to get there the same way you did.
You listen. You ask questions. You JUST ask questions, and not because you’re leading towards a huge “GOTCHA” because gotcha’s don’t actually work. They’re self-serving and only make division worse and make your target double down on their insular, atomized world-view.
Instead, you do everything you can to build a personality and history profile of the person by asking them questions about their life, about their fears, about what’s changed in their life, and about what their political leaders have done to help them. Do not get sidetracked, do not get baited. They LOVE to bait you with tangental nonsense, they learned it from FOX. Just repeat yourself “Okay that’s fine, trans people are indeed trying to steal the statue of liberty to send it back to France, but I want to know Jed, what are you going to do if grocery prices don’t go down? What are you going to do if aunt Gertie’s operation isn’t covered?”
A lot of the time, just this act of isolating and highlighting where the biggest concerns are, where the heart of the fear is, that can break people by itself. I have heard it so many times. “I dunno man, I just don’t know… maybe they are all just scummy politicians, I just don’t know who else to believe in.” This is your victory, this is what it sounds like. Not concessions, not regret, not anger or steamed silence. But genuine feelings about something.
This is the way that people like Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani focus on issues and change people. It’s focus on one thing, and attacking that one thing and not the person. I know a lot of progressives have a hard time with this because there’s SO MUCH SHIT we want to fix and address, but you have to learn to lower yourself a few pegs and just tackle one thing at a time.
I disagree with this opinion completely.
They know they are awful and don’t want to change. You are wasting your time by going after them instead of people who are much more pliable and simply don’t pay enough attention and go with the flow. Those are the people for whom such a time investment could pay off. Those are the people for whom you would not be wasting your time talking to brick walls who know they speak in bad faith but love wasting your time because they have a locked in goal, and don’t give a shit about how much you want to understand them. Hell, they love it when progressives like you try to stop other progressives from realizing that this is indeed a very straight forward battle of completely different goals and senses of morality.
I am screaming from the rooftops that we need to do this. We need to stop avoiding confrontation and start getting all up in each other’s business again
Time to take a uncooked lentil bean and put it under their valve stem caps and screw it down. The slight depression will slowly leak the air out of their tire, and they will have a ruined day eventually. All without property damage.
I love democracy
he also wants to not be scared.
No. These people live to be fearful. You don’t understand where they are starting from.
We have the same basic axioms, it’s just that for some people having an “enemy” makes it easier for them to cope with problems in their own life.
It’s true they thrive in fear, but it’s reductive. We can do a better job changing people and getting better outcomes if we stop being reductive and start being the smarter person who understands how the country’s strongest political capital functions and start getting them pointed towards our actual enemies.
We can do a better job changing people and getting better outcomes if we stop being reductive and start being the smarter person who understands how the country’s strongest political capital functions and start getting them pointed towards our actual enemies
What would the donors think about this?
The problem I find is even when I genuinely try to do this their reasoning is genuinely incomprehensible to me, these people don’t care about what they can see with their own eyes let alone scientific concensus, its a world view with more basis on how they feel inside their own heads than whats hitting them in the face in real life.
its a world view with more basis on how they feel inside their own heads than whats hitting them in the face in real life.
Absolutely correct, which is why it’s challenging to engage but also, if you just accept that they live in a world of narratives and feel-stories, you can engage with them on that level, you can make a narrative out of how much they’re paying for childcare, a story of how hard it’s going to be to get a job when wealthy assholes turn over everyone’s [unprotected labor] to AI. You can make a narrative about the rich assholes who are sneaking their tax money out the back door and distracting people with social “identity politics.” You can spin your own conspiracy story, with them at the center of a grand plot.
Except this grand plot is how rich oligarchs are covering up sex crimes and tax evasion among the world’s most elite… wait, that is exactly Q-anon isn’t it? Well that’s why Q-anon worked. It started to almost move people towards realizing they’re being played. Keep that up. Just ground it in reality.
Again, the idea of asking them questions is to get them out of stories about other people in other places. FOX and friends does this on purpose, they spin stories about far-away problems for simple minds to latch onto. Change the story. Make it about them and their home and their savings and their healthcare and their retirement. Bring them back to a present story and peel back their feelings about it.
Great comment. And you have to acknowledge that it’s really hard to actually have these conversations. You might actually find out you’re wrong about something because you hadn’t considered something that’s fundamental to their view of the world. And, doing it the way you suggest is even harder than just arguing about it. Because you have to swallow your pride/anger when they talk about stealing the statue of liberty, and instead try to get the conversation back to something more reasonable.
My mom has become a crazy conspiracy theorist, but for most of my life she was a lefty. The result is that she’s not fully right wing, and instead has this weird jumble of beliefs that often clash with each-other. And it’s obvious that a lot of the time she’s just parroting the last thing she heard, without ever having thought about it. I have to admit that often I just dodge it when she brings up her latest conspiracy. It just takes too much energy to engage. Other times I get drawn in and actually just shoot down the ridiculous conspiracy. But, the most productive times are when I can put in the energy and effort to try to understand her underlying fears and why she wants to accept these fantastical stories.
It just takes too much energy to engage.
And this is part of the reason the other commenter is dead wrong.
Most of them know it takes energy to engage, and it takes a lot less out of them to engage in bad faith than it does for you to engage in good faith.
This is valuable effort that could be used to get people who are not active to be active, and instead its wasted on hateful people who aren’t simply “misunderstood” as naive viewpoints would have one believe.
When you talk to people and “figure out” that at a base level they want many of the same things you want, and then are confused at how to bridge the gap, its because the gap is, they only want the good things, if the people they hate can’t also have them. There is no bridge that can be gapped there. They, if trying to be polite/feign ignorance, will talk circles around those underlying views, but you can see in the loud ones and in the messaging of those they support what they are actually for clear as day. They want hierarchy, and they want people they hate below them. This is their single voter issue and its above the shirts on their backs.
Because you have to swallow your pride/anger when they talk about stealing the statue of liberty
this weird jumble of beliefs that often clash with each-other
Honestly, this is most of the US right now. Maybe much of the world broadly. The information/media age has not been kind to people with simple views and simple minds.
But yes, the huge challenge, and it is a real challenge, is setting aside that need to correct so, so many things that are going to be wrong or utterly batshit and just listen like you’re an alien visiting Earth and you have no idea how anything works so you’re getting it all from this first person you meet.
It’s easy to forget that no one is the villain in their own book. While the views might be now outdated, taking a moment to consider the other person’s perspective, even if it doesn’t align with my own, can really help with reaching a common understanding. There’s a drastic change when you see your ultra racist uncle as a man that’s simply absolutely frightened of change, and that is something I can get on with. Empathy goes a long way.
It’s easy to forget that no one is the villain in their own book.
They absolutely can and often are. They revel in it even.
(from a previous comment) Most of them know it takes energy to engage, and it takes a lot less out of them to engage in bad faith than it does for you to engage in good faith.
This is valuable effort that could be used to get people who are not active to be active, and instead its wasted on hateful people who aren’t simply “misunderstood” as naive viewpoints would have one believe.
When you talk to people and “figure out” that at a base level they want many of the same things you want, and then are confused at how to bridge the gap, its because the gap is, they only want the good things, if the people they hate can’t also have them. There is no bridge that can be gapped there. They, if trying to be polite/feign ignorance, will talk circles around those underlying views, but you can see in the loud ones and in the messaging of those they support what they are actually for clear as day. They want hierarchy, and they want people they hate below them. This is their single voter issue and its above the shirts on their backs.
Paradox of tolerance. Do I need to link the wiki? Ok
I am literally wrapping up a novel where the protagonist is the antagonist at the same time. I’m not the first one to write such a story of course, but holy shit did I have to work through some internal trauma to write that story to a suitable ending. I understand why many people may not want to bother…
That sounds very cool! I’d be very interested in reading it, whenever it’s available. Specially knowing that it involved some soul searching from the author.
It’s easy to forget that no one is the villain in their own book.
Incidentally, why I hate a lot of movies where the villain is Dr. Evil who is part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, or something. Also why I think the Good / Evil alignment axis in D&D is bullshit.
ultra racist uncle as a man that’s simply absolutely frightened of change
Or just someone who grew up in a different time and was taught different things and doesn’t believe that what they were taught is out of date. Similarly, a kid might think they know everything but doesn’t have the wisdom and experience to know that things are more complicated than they seem on the surface. Both can be pretty obnoxious at a thanksgiving dinner table.
Take, for example, a discussion about how voting is done. The racist uncle might think that mail-in voting is a scam, and that the only way to vote should be in-person. He might not understand that poor people in cities sometimes have to wait in line for hours to vote, and that some might not be able to do that while holding down 2 jobs. He might not believe that the small number of polling places was a deliberate choice by a past government to discourage these people from voting.
But, at the same time, the kid might think that online voting is the obvious answer. The kid lives her entire life online and often votes on things. She knows a bit about encryption and has heard of blockchains and thinks that the only people against online voting are luddites who are afraid of technology. She might not understand the danger of being able to prove that you voted and who you voted for. She might not appreciate how sometimes low tech things are much harder to manipulate and fake.
So, there’s “cautious of change happening too quickly” vs. “too eager to embrace change without considering the consequences”. Everybody likes to think that they’re smack dab in the sweet spot between those two things, but everyone else is going to judge them as being too far to one side.
Are you suggesting that Liberals aren’t blind to the realities of life cause literally everyone I’ve talked to on the Left is convinced they are. If both Left and Right thinks Liberals are blind to reality shrug
They’d probably say something more like “woke and gay”
Hold on, let me consult the professional for interspecies communication…
And still. Same same.
Like if I met someone and they said check out that loser over there. He/she’s woke and gay. I’d be cool someone sane I can talk to.
To be fair I don’t think their definition of woke would be somebody who is understanding. A “woke” person would not give them grace for having an alternative viewpoint.
I agree because of the political cloud over their eyes, but if there were a lineup for both words, they’d point out the same person.
“i’m dying to go so i can make fun of my f-word nephew”
libral
Snowflake and brain washed
My wife begged to go to family gatherings the first year we were together even though I told her exactly what they were like and insisted I would rather do anything else.
It only took one holiday season for her to understand, and we no longer have to tolerate this.
This is my uncle, except instead of redneck, he’s Cuban and die-hard GOP. He also hates my part of the family because we caught him, his daughter, and fiancée stealing from my dying grandmother despite him being her caretaker.
He did an amazing job at caring for her while also snatching valuables because he knew he’d have to share when she died.
he’s Cuban
Some people will tell you that Communism made Cuba a better place. But I suspect a big part of it was all the worst fuckers on the island moving to Florida.
That’s not why they’re the way they are. I’ve expounded on the topic at length before on Lemmy. My family and people are tainted by The Bay of Pigs. They fled Fidel for the US and lost everything they owned in Cuba. That created the bitterness toward Communism and Socialism.
The Bay of Pigs created their hatred for the Dems. The brainwashing was a result of the freedom fighters having their US support removed last minute, leaving them to be killed or jailed. Congress voted to remove support after Kennedy promised it. The brainwashing was around Kennedy doing it intentionally when in reality it was the Republican led Congress and Senate.
They fled Fidel for the US and lost everything they owned in Cuba.
The Bay of Pigs created their hatred for the Dems.
That’s a story I’ve heard. But Dems continued to win Florida through Obama.
Seems like a lot of the Cuban Exile energy came out of their 80s era gray market role in drugs and arms dealing through the Caribbean. And that put them at the forefront of the crypto ponzi schemes under Obama, Trump, and Biden.
Now they’re just bog standard libertarian fascists.
It’s not entirely inaccurate. My great-grandfather was known as The Sugar King. On the other side of the family, my other great granddad worked for PepsiCo LatAm. They made inside deals.
My family were insanely wealthy back in Cuba until they fled here. I can trace my heritage back to the 1300s and before on that side of the family. My maternal namesake ancestor was the first mayor/alcalde of Habana and received his name “Sotolongo” from King Ferdinand & Isabella. There is a town named after him north of the Portuguese border.
The 70s and 80s produced the Peter Pan and the Mariel boat lifts where Castro released his worst criminals and people from insane asylums to flee here and elsewhere. It was all fucked.
probably doesnt help that most of their first/only experience with the US is florida, southern florida at that. far as scammer culture goes, it probably doesn’t get much worse in the US than florida (maybe equal to boston/NYC/silicon valley?)
100%. I left Florida in 99. Returned briefly in 2004 and left for good in 2009. I happen to be here visiting my parents now. Thankfully they live in the Florida Keys.
I hate this state.
Communism was the mean which it happened
Reminiscent of my uncle and his care for/leeching of my grandmother, except check this out.
Last time I saw him we were talking he told me “I am racist, but know racism is wrong, and I’m trying my best to teach my kids not to be like that”
Which is super self aware; so good for you? But I just can’t wrap my mind around how you can know racism is wrong and yet continue to be racist and struggle to teach your kids to not be racist. Like…just stop being racist?
As someone who was raised in a rather racist in-group, I can say that it took a really long time to purposefilly unlearn the automatic gut responses my father ingrained into me. I would, for several years, think or say something without considering it, and immediately realize what I had just said. Actions and attitudes are often automatic, especially when taught for a long time. I can certainly see where the uncle’s coming from, because I’d imagine that the only reason I’ve been able to mostly get through it is because I got away from that situation when I went to college, rather than later in life.
There’s a strange duality of living or coming from the South in the US, and presumably, other places with extreme prejudice. Words or phrases get used like water such that they are etched into your mind, causing an almost Pavlovian response mechanism to trigger, despite one’s true feelings.
It’s almost like a game Red light, Green light, but for awfulness. I haven’t lived in the South for decades, and on occasion, a hateful word will pop out of a dark hole in my head even though my real thoughts and actions run counter to it.
I can sort of understand his stance, but being aware of it is enough, at least to me, to fix it. Anything other than that is intentional malice.
I think I have pity for him being racist and not wanting to be, but I am confused. He can’t help the thoughts that go through his head, if that’s what he means, but I don’t know if he is also acting on those thoughts. If he is, then yeah, just stop, lol.
Except it’s not so simple. Research consistently shows that even people who believe themselves not to be prejudiced act differently based on prejudice. Having a “black” name, BIPOC, a woman, disabled, or any other “minority” affects actions and attitudes subliminally.
Who do you ask a question to (the person pushing the wheelchair, or the person in the wheelchair?), sit next to on public transit (the black guy or the white woman?), friend’s teenager you ask to babysit/house-sit (the white girl or the black guy?), hire to do your gardening (the Hispanic man or the black woman?), question do you take first after your work presentation (white man or Indigenous woman?), smile at politely as you pass on the street (the unhoused?), etc.
For someone who acknowledges they are racist, these biases run deep, and I imagine it must be mentally taxing to constantly run a filter on your actions you notice, let alone all your unconscious/automatic reactions.
As someone who’s a “woke” anti-racist, I find it challenging to even notice my biases, let alone change my actions. (When’s the last time you made eye contact and smiled at an unhoused person automatically, without noticing you’re doing it? I do so, but it’s a conscious action for me, not automatic.)
I don’t disagree, but it’s like asking a woman who she would rather be alone with, an unknown man or an unknown woman. There’s also familiarity bias and having more in common. I don’t think I have to be racist or prejudice to know there will in general be less friction with a white dude vs a black dude, because that’s just most people around me. I still try and ignore that because I know it’s limiting my experiences, but there are good reasons that I wouldn’t ascribe purely to prejudice.
Also for the wheelchair example, I again think there are reasons for this. For the person in the wheelchair you often don’t know why, did they have a stroke and can’t speak? Are they ill? Or did they just hurt their leg? I’m not saying people wouldn’t be biased against the disabled even if that weren’t true, but a lot of these have legitimate reasons that aren’t just prejudice (maybe the dictionary definition but not irrational prejudice).
Who do you ask a question to (the person pushing the wheelchair, or the person in the wheelchair?),
-> depends on why they sit in a wheelchair and what I want to ask.
sit next to on public transit (the black guy or the white woman?)
-> I mostly stand but again, if I had to sit, it depends on the vibe I am getting from both, with - vibe considered equal - a tendency to sit near a guy to not make a woman feel uncomfortable.
, friend’s teenager you ask to babysit/house-sit (the white girl or the black guy?),
-> if color of skin or gender enter my considerations, I would let neither anywhere near a child, as I obviously do not know them nearly well enough.
hire to do your gardening (the Hispanic man or the black woman?)
-> I will not pay someone to do chores for me, doing everyday chores is what keeps people grounded. I don’t want to risk becoming something like a boomer.
, question do you take first after your work presentation (white man or Indigenous woman?),
-> whoever signaled a question first
smile at politely as you pass on the street (the unhoused?)
-> everyone that makes eye contact
-> holy shit you made that list of examples sound like it’s in any way difficult to know exactly how to behave.
Ok say you had to let someone watch your dog or it will starve or get very sick from overeating and all your friends/family/acquaintances are out of town, and there was a medical emergency that the ambulance is just about ready to leave, and you were wearing headphones so you didn’t notice anything was wrong until the people in the ambulance walked in through the door someone else had opened for them. You have 10 seconds before the ambulance leaves with your loved one, and have to decide from 2 onlookers. One person is white and one is black. That is the only difference you can gather as you are quickly walking by, and you don’t have time to get a good look at either of them. You can only choose one because your landlord’s policy only allows you to have 1 person who isn’t you have a key to your apartment. Which do you choose?
For you to write up such an elaborate mental gymnastic just to ask a question about skin colour makes me think you are racist. Normal people like me see more about a person than just the colour of their skin, also at a glance.
I was hoping to get you to actually engage with a hypothetical but it seems that’s impossible. I also see more than skin color at a glance, but again you’re not engaging with the hypothetical since I said they are identical other than skin color, but sure.
It’s definitely not what the racist uncle thinks. But I can tell you he doesn’t think he is racist. He thinks he’s “saying it like it is” or something.
He probably thinks you are a lazy person who just wants free handouts from the government.
Meanwhile he’s been trying to scam disability claims for the past 20 years.
Uh, he earned that disability claim with his service in the armed forces. It was hard tax payer funded work!
Thanksgiving with family is the worst, for many reasons.
Just let me be alone with my dogs, eating and drinking whatever I want in my quiet, clean house. Now that’s a holiday.
got to have a party dog
I recently heard someone say their brother had married a woman who was so crazy she was “one of those liberals who would praise satan for Charlie Kirk’s death.”
Hail Satan
is cake day in here too?
If Satan is the one who arranged it, I’d say he’s done a good chunk of atonement toward getting back into Heaven.
Guilty as charged 😈
Huh? If he’s so open minded why isn’t he open to racism, huh? /s
he can excuse racism but he draws the line on wokeness.
I hate that this sounds like a genuinely good argument
All my uncles are conservative, it’s a living hell.
why do we call it “conservative” again? not sure what they’re conservating at this point…
Existing hierarchies and power structures.
If you can force yourself to view everything through that lens, the actions of conservatives make a lot of sense, as do the things that make them angry.
I’m Canadian, where the equivalent to the Republican party is called the Conservative Party of Canada under the guise that they are fiscally conservative.
This is, of course, not the case but it’s the name they chose. It does lead to some confusion much like the National Socialist German Workers’ Party did.
I feel that. My family is from the south, and then they moved to a shitty midwest state, brought all their racist bullshit with them. I just stopped going to events, changing my number today even to avoid the texts and calls from people who already know why I don’t talk to them. So far, none of them able-to-be/worth saving, maybe some little cousins but I can’t exactly reach them.
my brother is a conservative
My condolences, It’s hard to see it happened to the ones you love
It’s very sad indeed to have your brother hate on all of your friends just because they are lgbt.
