Quote Originally Posted by JimmyS1985 View Post
First I'd like to say that this election did in fact mostly have to do with race, more than economics. They'll play it off as an election over economics, because it's the least morally indefensible path to take on this matter.

I didn't vote for Trump, but I can answer the racial/misogynist/ethnicist aspect of it, as a White Male. When I grew up in school, while we had black classmates, and we were nice to them and all, I can say I did at least, engage in "soft-racism". Most White people can't even agree on what racism is exactly, unless it's extremely overt, and even then you'll get defenders of the racist. But they'll flat out deny anything is racist if it's not extremely overt.

One reason Whites teach their kids not to say "nigger" around Black people, isn't that we're trying to reduce racism in our society. It's because it plays our hand face up when it's that overt. "Soft racism is much harder to detect..

Most Whites, they'll be friendly to minorities to their faces, wave hi to their Muslim neighbors, and be nice to the parents of color who have children at the White parents school. But in the back of our heads I'm sure there is some sense of "I'm superior to you".

I use to be racist/misogynist/ethnicist and hated gays, but it was much more "soft" than outright visiting KKK websites and so on and so forth. I often engaged in soft-racism, and when no one was around, occasionally in overt-racism.

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I removed some of the quote for minimizing size.

I agree with your first paragraph. It has become clear to me in my last week's research (such as listening to the WSJ opinion podcasts and reading other slightly conservative news sources) that the definition of racism is not consistent across the country and there is a large part in America that only considers and/or understands overt racism. Anything less than calling someone the n-word or directly coming out and saying you hate a race is not racism and often a tool of the "biased media." It saddens me that people hear phrases from Trump like "I love the Hispanics. The Hispanics are going to get great jobs." and thinks it's not racist. When you add a modifier of the to groups, you're creating a divide. You're implying an us and a they and you're perpetuating less overt racism.

I struggle with many other points you make in this post. I was taught to treat all people equal regardless of race, sex, religion, etc. As a consequence, I was taught not to use the n-word because it treats a specific race as less than and has a lot of implied hatred.

I would encourage you to challenge the statement you made, " I still haven't rooted it out entirely, I think deep down were all racist in some way or another." To me this feels like a cop out. It feels you're making the statement, I've removed the overt racism and as much of the more subtle racism. Nothing left to do. I realize you're not directly saying this but it's implied.

I've learned through exposure, experience, and travel across the world that regardless of where you're from, your socioeconomic standing, your gender, etc, etc that people are generally good and they want the same things in life. They want to be treated fairly, pursue happiness, love and be loved, and provide these opportunities to future generations. However, typically through fear, they lash out when they feel these values are threatened. Until we can recognize we're the same, truly the same with no hint of an us vs a them, although I will acknowledge people are dealt different cards in life, we cannot progress as a society.