SquallTheBlade said:
So, do you have any racist friends and what do you think about them? Personally, I think I can't look at my friend the same way anymore...
Most of the older generations in my family are racist. My grandfather, my father, even my mother was racist against Mexicans.
My mother had the largest impact on me, as she won custody after the divorce, and for a while I was racist against Mexicans/Hispanics until my late teens. After I caught myself being ignorant and biased one too many times, and not believing I was like that, I decided to change. I found the first thing I did was simply displace the racism into other bigoted opinions. Emos, Obese people, idiots, Bible-thumpers, etc. More "acceptable" groups to rag on.
Then I simply got tired of hating indiscriminately. It messed with my mojo, my inner calm. It was a caustic fuel which ate away at me even as it ramped me up. So, I switched from hating to laughing. Now I laugh every single day - at stuff which is probably not funny to most people. I feel happy, and while I still feel the burning hot rage of a thousand Suns occasionally, it's usually subjected to an individual or specific group which has displayed they are nothing but the opposite of everything I stand for (re: TEA Partiers booing the Golden Rule).
I would venture to say that I'm more egalitarian when it comes to dating than most. I've dated caucasian, Thai, Black, Puerto Rican Mixed, and I know much of my family is racist because they give me shit about it.
It's never bad shit - it's not overt, harsh racism. It's just something underneath the cracks. Something that doesn't fit in with their world view and because they are polite, loving people, they address it in the way they see as polite. Everybody in my family - and I have a very large extended family - married within their race. I currently live in Salt Lake City - which is about 92% Caucasian. My immediate family has spent practically all of their adult lives living in the suburbs around SLC, and expanding horizons is for young folk.
I understand their racism, and since it hasn't exhibited as damaging - I find most of the women are able to deal with it just fine given a heads up. However, I think there's also a mutual understanding that I don't really need them - and that if they did do anything which I found insulting to my core, I'd have no problem dropping all communication with them. I'm the type of person who doesn't take that crap for very long, and have no problem simply cutting the person spewing it right out of my life.
However, my understanding of their racism isn't to say that I think racism is fine or implies that there are benign (or even beneficial) types. Racism, ultimately, is constructed out of stereotypes - reinforced by stereotypes - and produces stereotypes. It is self-perpetuating. Stereotypes are an incredibly simplified template that our minds use to assess an unknown person's qualities and capabilities before we are given a chance to understand them. They are necessary for our function; but the difference between a racist stereotype that leads to hatred and gross generalization and one that leads to indifference is simple.
People are are venomously racist are the ones who apply a stereotype which they have allowed or encouraged themselves to develop above and beyond simple phenotypic cues, and then defend it at all costs. They ignore exceptions, lambast others who disagree, and refuse to spend the energy required for understanding. Sometimes this is done out of pure laziness, which sounds like your friend, and sometimes this is done out of pure fear - which usually provides bombastic results when pushed.
That is in stark contrast to, as an example, my personal process. My initial stereotype applied to other people is "human" - which is correspondingly vague and carries wide-ranging connotations about personality and capabilities. It's often mistaken for apathy (which should say something about how others expect to be treated based on their looks), and means that I ask a lot of questions. Unfortunately, the last bit takes
time, effort, and the willingness to find something in common.
As a result, many don't. Then, they justify their lack of effort. Usually via excuses like "positive racism," "racism is unavoidable/necessary," "if nobody's hurt it's okay," "I've been this way forever so there's no need to change," and whatever angle they want to play it at.
Your friend sounds he doesn't know what to think, actually. He sounds like he's in limbo. He's dating/dated a black woman and supposedly hates "niggers." That type of really obvious and blatant hypocrisy usually means there's something else going on and he's in a period where he's trying to define himself - via arguing with you, via current trends he was predisposed to, and attempting to find the easiest path to a personality he can accept.
Your job should be to serve as an example, force him onto a more difficult path, or drop him altogether if he's made up his mind.
