zxcvbs Posted March 17, 2014 Posted March 17, 2014 Hi, i have this issue: My brother, is a little racist about minorities (inmigrants, black people, jews, homosexuals, poor people), he says he it isnt, because he doesnt goes arround banging minorities, that to be a racist one haves to apply violence, his choice is just dont mixing with "these" people that he views as the cancer of society. He denies holocaust, blames illegal inmigrants about jobs, talks about a zionist cospiracies, and thinks that white people is in reality discriminated/segregated, because it doesnt have the possibilities to fight about their own cause or self pride like the self right minorities have, because it is seen as plain racism. Socio economic background: We live and are from south america, Argentina, yes there is a moral decay everywhere, but it is caused by state corruption, instead of marginalized people by society. We belong to white lower medium class/ working class. Our ancestors came here from Italy a long time ago, like new inmigrants are now coming from near countries. For me nationalism, is plainly stupid, in the end, people from near countries, have native descendency from this continent, we are just masses of trash expelled by europe, that came used to motivate the systematic robbery of local natives from power elites. He is just a teeneger, doesnt works, and is in the last years of what there is called high school, is true that we had hard times of fammiliar violence in childhood, but to me is not sane projecting emotional load as hate on minorities. Instead of studying, or trying, to improve new skills/knowledge , he is just compulsively centered on absorving racist biased information. My main problem, is this the more i read, the more desbelief i am, and try to no absorve information/knowledge as packets be it movies, books (philosophy, sciene, politics), internet, etc. I have the impression that all this mass information material that i like/absorve, is just lazy indoctrination, motivated for a need to fill a emotinal craving of knowledge, that in reality has to be formulated within ones rationality, not preaching someone elses truths. To me is hypotrical , to try to contrarest what i think his false arguments are (i have an emotional attachment to think that he has an emotional bias about minorities), without before indoctrinating my own self in contra argumentative authors contrarian to what he is preaching, From one points, he blames chavism, cuban communism, Che Guevara, like mercenaries but in the other end he idealizes nazism (this can be explained because my mother is a lot hippy, lefty, and perhaps he subconsciously blames she for years of misery, passive aggresive violency during childhood). He also hates psychologists. Or blames jews about palestine killing, and denies holocaust. What can i do about this situation? is bad to take his crystal castle ideolegy where he inside plays a chess made from pieces of stereotypes/and prejudices and destroy it?
dsayers Posted March 17, 2014 Posted March 17, 2014 What can i do about this situation? It sounds like it is his situation. Why do you feel you need to do anything about it? If this is your brother, did you grow up in the same household? Have you been subjected to the same abuse he has? Do you accept that this level of irrational hatred must come from abuse? I think the most important thing you could do is to explore these things and try to identify how this abuse has effected you. In other words, I think the best thing you could do to about your brother's situation is to use it as motivation to enhance your own situation. I don't know that there's anything you could do for him. It's clear he would reject any rational argument that didn't support his position. If you did pursue the self-knowledge recommended here, you might be able to later offer an emotional plea to him, having presumably come from the same environment that enabled his hatred. Otherwise, I wouldn't let the irrational convictions of another person inhibit your ability to do well yourself. Does that make sense?
zxcvbs Posted March 17, 2014 Author Posted March 17, 2014 Yes, we grow up in the same situation, and violence was not just from my parents, but on each others. I have the bias that he is wasting social experience, locking up in his inner self, just for the blame of hating people, in prejudice of his development as a person. I think this issue is really a manifestation caused by emotional damage, and going through this paths he is not really healing, just fueling his hate/alienation. But i know that i have gone also in other contrarian paths being questioned about that (mainly anti christianism, posmodernism, anarchism), and is just fool to fight about it, labeling his thinking as bad or despecting him as a black sheep. What I merely can do is just, dialogue with arguments. I also see limitations on my choices, because i had/have problems creating ideas /formulating arguments, but a big facillity/attachment to destroy/deconstruct everything. Disbelief that is interfering with my own thought/development, i dont like the same for him, in the end is all about believing in our own acts (be it emotional or rational), without it one cannot learn/construct nothing, and sadly some kind of basic illusion is needed to build upon (but i dont think a racist illusion is good).
Gunnhvatr Posted March 23, 2014 Posted March 23, 2014 It sounds to me like you have an interesting opportunity here to confront racism in a way that is typically not done: a rational debate involving facts and not feelings. I'm sure you know from personal experience that saying politically incorrect things does not typically result in a debate. You get brow-beaten and hit with personal attacks. This would be even worse if you comitted the secular sin of racism. So, why should your brother change his mind if no one actually attempts to prove he is wrong?
weeb Posted March 23, 2014 Posted March 23, 2014 Sounds like this guy needs to get out of his bubble and travel. Take him somewhere where he's the minority, a humbling experience to those that have not experienced language and culture shock before. It is amazing how trying to bridge a language-gap can result in a non-verbal mutual understanding between very culturally different people; one that, I think, shows our commonality as humans. Aside from the aforementioned direct socialization, do not let him repeat stereotypes of hate around the children in your life. Have zero tolerance for this talk and call them out when appropriate. Prejudice is a meme that we could live without.
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