Agreed, but some solutions have a fairly binary answer. Extremism is a huge problem, but that is part on centrists tolerating intolerance and not taking a stance. There is no middle ground for racist ideology. There is no room for it in society. The answer to “I believe the Jews should be exterminated” is simply opposing it, "Jewish people have a right to maintain and cultivate themselves and their culture. To put it simply, for someone who wishes complete death for the Jews, the answer is not the middle ground. You cannot compromise and say “how about we kill half a Jew only?”. This example is stupid and has lots of flaws, but I just came off of night shift.
Perhaps, but what counts as an expression of “racist ideology?” It’s usually not as simple as the true extremists make it. Is a comedian making that tired old joke about how Black people fought to be able to sit at the front of the bus and now they all sit at the back racist? How’s about when a Black person cals a White person a cracker? What about when White people say the word removed when talking about the word historically? I work with the poor and mentally ill (therapist), and I have plenty of clients who have made generalized statements about the other racial groups they share their neighborhoods with, but they wouldn’t consider those statements racist, because in their experience they’re true, and they can’t be racist if they’re factual, right?
95% of the racist content out there is not so easy to discern and we as a society agree far less on it than our academics and news organizations suggest.
The fallacy of the middle ground. This is where most ‘centrists’ fall.
That’s interesting, because I was going to say I hate how a lot of people are very susceptible to extremism and binary thinking.
Agreed, but some solutions have a fairly binary answer. Extremism is a huge problem, but that is part on centrists tolerating intolerance and not taking a stance. There is no middle ground for racist ideology. There is no room for it in society. The answer to “I believe the Jews should be exterminated” is simply opposing it, "Jewish people have a right to maintain and cultivate themselves and their culture. To put it simply, for someone who wishes complete death for the Jews, the answer is not the middle ground. You cannot compromise and say “how about we kill half a Jew only?”. This example is stupid and has lots of flaws, but I just came off of night shift.
Perhaps, but what counts as an expression of “racist ideology?” It’s usually not as simple as the true extremists make it. Is a comedian making that tired old joke about how Black people fought to be able to sit at the front of the bus and now they all sit at the back racist? How’s about when a Black person cals a White person a cracker? What about when White people say the word removed when talking about the word historically? I work with the poor and mentally ill (therapist), and I have plenty of clients who have made generalized statements about the other racial groups they share their neighborhoods with, but they wouldn’t consider those statements racist, because in their experience they’re true, and they can’t be racist if they’re factual, right?
95% of the racist content out there is not so easy to discern and we as a society agree far less on it than our academics and news organizations suggest.