Not conducive to dialogue

[sarahmichigan]

It's hard for me, too, to talk about race, especially with someone whose views appear to me (not saying they ARE, just that it's my perception) to be racist and/or un-informed. Instead of wanting to dialogue and figure out where that person is coming from, my first reaction is to want to scream:

SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!!!

I think this is because I don't want anyone to think that, because my skin color is the same color as the person with the icky-to-me views, that I think the same way that person does.

Comments

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

I think this is because I don't want anyone to think that, because my skin color is the same color as the person with the icky-to-me views, that I think the same way that person does.

This is, ultimately, a form of racism in itself, just as thinking that all blacks have the same opinions is.

On the sexism front, I struggled with something similar for a long time. I went out of my way to be a touchy-feely non-violent daisies-and-butterflies male, becoming angry when other males did abominable things because, ick, someone might assume that because I'm male, I wanted to do the same things.

Then I mostly got over it. :D I still have that impulse now and then, though.