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Dealing with [Racism at Home]
Romantic Undead
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi everyone!
In light of everything that's going on right now, I thought it my be helpful to create a separate thread for those of us who may be dealing with racism at home. I checked with the mods and they said we good, so here we go. My intent with this thread is twofold:
First, I wanted to provide a space where we those of us who are being forced to deal with racism at home can commiserate, share, and maybe blow off a little steam.
Second, I also want this to be a thread where we can discuss steps each of us can take, right now, to address the situation. Strategies like:
- How to bring up the topic of racism safely in an environment where you know racism exists
- Deciding when to confront, when to back off, and knowing how to recognize if and when we need to make the painful decision of having to cut someone out of our lives
- Sharing personal stories, as well as strategies of what has worked for you, and what has not
- Listening to minority voices, who may wish to share with us their ideas of what they would like to see from those who are in the positions that we are in
To get the ball rolling, I'd like to start by sharing my own story, in the hopes that it inspires some of you to come share as well.
As some of you may know, I recently posted a thread in H&A (seen here: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/232436/my-mother-published-her-book-and-i-hate-it/p1)
In this thread, I made the discovery that my mother, a sweet and loving woman by all other measures, held some pretty disturbing views.
Following the death of George Floyd, things have gotten worse. Over the course of several Facebook conversations, I finally came around to realizing that an old friend, as well as a cousin, were both racists, with my cousin later revealing himself as a straight-up unapologetic white supremacist. I unfriended both of them. Following this, my cousin PMed me, "apologizing" for his behaviour. However, it became clear that the reason he thought I was mad at him was because he had "annoyed" me, despite the fact that I had told him, straight up, that the reason I had unfriended him was because I can't be seen to be associated with White Supremacists. Of course, he disputed that he was, despite having posted White Nationalist propaganda on my timeline, saying, no word of a lie, "my best friend is Asian!". I called him out for being a stereotype, then made a request of him: "If you are sincere about wanting to make amends, then post a retraction and apology on your own Facebook timeline, then we can talk".
That was, as of today, 4 nights ago. I haven't heard from him since.
Then, there's my mom. Very long story short, she insists on responding to anyone on our timelines saying "Black Lives Matter" with "All Lives Matter". My sister, myself, and a number of our friends, have tried to explain, as gently as we can, why that response is inappropriate. I have always thought of my mother as a kind, thoughtful and heartfelt individual. It was my hope that, having been confronted on the insensitivity of her behaviour, she would seek to correct it. Instead, she has become enraged and indignant. Choice quotes including "How dare you!", "How could you be so cruel?", "How do you think I feel" etc. etc. etc. I have all the posts and PMs to prove it.
Throughout all of this, I have been getting periodic texts from my dad, that amount to "stop antagonizing your mother", "know when to shut up", "your words are falling on deaf ears" and on and on and on.
Oh, I should mention, we are Canadian (Ottawa). As rough as things have gotten here, I know that there are some of you reading this that are likely experiencing far, far worse. Please tell us your stories, and let's see if we can't at the very least provide comfort to one another, and perhaps even come up with ways to make things better moving forward.
Thanks for reading, and take care of yourselves out there you guys.
In light of everything that's going on right now, I thought it my be helpful to create a separate thread for those of us who may be dealing with racism at home. I checked with the mods and they said we good, so here we go. My intent with this thread is twofold:
First, I wanted to provide a space where we those of us who are being forced to deal with racism at home can commiserate, share, and maybe blow off a little steam.
Second, I also want this to be a thread where we can discuss steps each of us can take, right now, to address the situation. Strategies like:
- How to bring up the topic of racism safely in an environment where you know racism exists
- Deciding when to confront, when to back off, and knowing how to recognize if and when we need to make the painful decision of having to cut someone out of our lives
- Sharing personal stories, as well as strategies of what has worked for you, and what has not
- Listening to minority voices, who may wish to share with us their ideas of what they would like to see from those who are in the positions that we are in
To get the ball rolling, I'd like to start by sharing my own story, in the hopes that it inspires some of you to come share as well.
As some of you may know, I recently posted a thread in H&A (seen here: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/232436/my-mother-published-her-book-and-i-hate-it/p1)
In this thread, I made the discovery that my mother, a sweet and loving woman by all other measures, held some pretty disturbing views.
Following the death of George Floyd, things have gotten worse. Over the course of several Facebook conversations, I finally came around to realizing that an old friend, as well as a cousin, were both racists, with my cousin later revealing himself as a straight-up unapologetic white supremacist. I unfriended both of them. Following this, my cousin PMed me, "apologizing" for his behaviour. However, it became clear that the reason he thought I was mad at him was because he had "annoyed" me, despite the fact that I had told him, straight up, that the reason I had unfriended him was because I can't be seen to be associated with White Supremacists. Of course, he disputed that he was, despite having posted White Nationalist propaganda on my timeline, saying, no word of a lie, "my best friend is Asian!". I called him out for being a stereotype, then made a request of him: "If you are sincere about wanting to make amends, then post a retraction and apology on your own Facebook timeline, then we can talk".
That was, as of today, 4 nights ago. I haven't heard from him since.
Then, there's my mom. Very long story short, she insists on responding to anyone on our timelines saying "Black Lives Matter" with "All Lives Matter". My sister, myself, and a number of our friends, have tried to explain, as gently as we can, why that response is inappropriate. I have always thought of my mother as a kind, thoughtful and heartfelt individual. It was my hope that, having been confronted on the insensitivity of her behaviour, she would seek to correct it. Instead, she has become enraged and indignant. Choice quotes including "How dare you!", "How could you be so cruel?", "How do you think I feel" etc. etc. etc. I have all the posts and PMs to prove it.
Throughout all of this, I have been getting periodic texts from my dad, that amount to "stop antagonizing your mother", "know when to shut up", "your words are falling on deaf ears" and on and on and on.
Oh, I should mention, we are Canadian (Ottawa). As rough as things have gotten here, I know that there are some of you reading this that are likely experiencing far, far worse. Please tell us your stories, and let's see if we can't at the very least provide comfort to one another, and perhaps even come up with ways to make things better moving forward.
Thanks for reading, and take care of yourselves out there you guys.
3DS FC: 1547-5210-6531
+1
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My Mom at least usually seems receptive, though it also seems like she doesn't get it most of the time. My Dad, though, is a very condescending person who on many occasions has confided in me how little he thinks of many other members of my family. I also believe he thinks less of me because of my mental illness, so arguing with him would probably just be counterproductive.
Yep, saw those, shared them, response: "well yes, but..."
But I remember a few years back we were at a restaurant with them and we were talking about our favorite movies and my wife said hers was still Lion King. Without missing a beat, my dad said "isn't he in the white house now?" My parents thought it was just the funniest thing, while I'm burning in embarrassment as the other tables around us turn and stare.
I know what their true feelings are about a lot of things. My wife's parents are a lesbian couple and I really don't know how they feel inside. I know my parents like them, but that doesn't mean they accept the lifestyle. It makes things more stressful because I don't want to cut them out of my life, but I feel like I should for my daughter's sake.
Fuck this world.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
It's not about politics, it's about morality. And someone who thinks that racism is "just politics" and therefore it's okay to hold racist views is not someone you need in your life.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
It works.
They're part of the generation that was told that all politics are dirty and therefore they should have no opinion on them, COMMA, Vote Republican!
I've described them as having passive white racism, but they're better about it than a lot of my more distanced family.
One plus side - those of my generation in the family, roughly ages 18-34 seem to be a bit better than their parents.
I have resorted to being very confrontational on FB with any family member who is posting actively racist or apologist things. I unfriended plenty in 2016 and was better for it.
Sis: Mom's really upset
Me: I'm really upset
S: Yeah, but you know she's delicate
M: So that makes it ok?
S: You're not going to get through to her by calling her a racist
M: I never called her a racist, I said she was being insensitive to the needs of the protesters, and asked her to change her behaviour
S: You don't understand, she doesn't think we love her enough, she feels like she's spent a lifetime of sacrifice to raise us, and now she's "Losing us"
M: What, so she's going to disown me?
S: No, she's afraid you're going to disown her
M: Then perhaps she should consider changing her behaviour
S: You're asking too much, they're not going to change, you just have to learn to love them for who they are
Needless to say, I'm not feeling too hopeful after that conversation.
My family would play this same card, especially my mom.
It’s manipulation. Your mom likely doesn’t really think you’re going to disown her, she just wants you to feel bad.
My mom once turned a jovial question as to why she bought a brand of beer for a party that nobody likes into a referendum on the “constant attacks on her Southern Christian heritage.”
That whole generation is a write-off.
1. Stay calm. Whoever loses their cool first loses the argument.
2. Identify their weaknesses. Every racist asshole acts they way they do because they feel afraid, aggrieved, alienated or embarrassed in some way. They have buttons that you can push, but everyone is different and you'll need to find those buttons yourself.
3. Own them when the time is right. Some people are so easy to own that as soon as you find the button you can push it and win, but other times going straight for the kill before you've earned it just means that you've lost your cool, meaning you've lost the argument (see rule 1).
The zeroth rule of arguing with a racist asshole is that arguments without an audience don't matter audience is everything. In practical terms, this means that you can get into it one-on-one with the racist asshole as often as you like, and even if you start out taking a bunch of Ls, it doesn't matter as long as you don't also act as your own spectator. Use verbal sparring sessions to learn your partner/opponent's weaknesses, learn how to identify weaknesses during an argument, learn how to time your attacks, learn how to defend yourself against their attacks, etc. etc. It also means that arguing in front of an audience sympathetic to your interlocutor is pretty much always pointless, because the rules will be slanted and interpreted in their favour.
I mostly agree with this, but the emotional variable of said racist being a close relative skews things somewhat. There are plenty of racists in my life that I can slough off and nothing in my life changes, so there are no personal stakes for me there. Losing a mother and denying my daughter her Nana complicates things to a pretty large degree.
No clue how young your daughter is, but generally speaking racists are really shitty at keeping a lid on their bullshit, even when it's brutally obvious that no one else is interested in hearing their viewpoint on an issue.
Of course there's exceptions and all that but you may be better off hashing things out now and setting terms before it's a few years down the line and you're worried about what your kid is being exposed to by loved ones
Come Overwatch with meeeee
An example of these (if you're willing to swallow a little vomit): The white slavery bullshit. This is a particular brand of persecution complex in which it's fully acknowledged that the police are out of control, but it's really white people way worse off than black people so everyone needs to stop complaining and bend over for it.
On my mother's side, there's a grandfather who came with his parents straight from Sicily at the height of mob power and a grandmother who's parents are both Irish. Their only surviving kid, my uncle, believes that even today Italians have it worse with the police than blacks and that Irish used to have it even worse.
I mean, yeah, reality is if he gets pulled over driving away from a murder scene with a gun in the back seat he'll get a warning for that broken tail light and sent on his way. However, he was alive when one of his uncles was gunned down for being Italian and in the wrong place, and probably grew up with stories about how his grandfather was killed in a case of mistaken identity during the hunt for a mob hitman and his other uncle was killed because a Detroit cop lost his shirt on a sucker bet and it was easier to kill the bookie and his bouncer than pay up.
He also believes that before that it was all Irish. His great-grandfather was very big on the idea that there should be two crying wives for every crying mother, and the stories that filtered down from that side of the family gives him his romanticized idea that the only reason Irish kids aren't being gunned down in the streets is because their families used to shoot back.
There are other versions of this in the Evangelical Persecution and Jewish Pogrom and other flavors, all basically the same with bigger or smaller grains of truth and all with their own incidents and tragedies to point to, none of them are completely devoid of truth because police are out of control, it's the affiliation with denial of black persecution that makes them bullshit.
Now, the easy answer to this isn't the most honest one. You don't need to break down the persecution complex, trying is likely to just make them retreat into their safe "I'm being oppressed!" space. You can let them keep that belief, because it's useful to understanding.
Because if everyone really is being killed it doesn't actually matter if we agree on who is being killed most. The reforms being demanded will stop the police killing innocents of every kind.
This a hundred times. My wife's parents did this shit all the time. It's sociopathic behavior meant to make their children submissive. Before they both passed, I probably spent five days a week reminding my wife that her parents actions were a form of gaslighting.
I know it's horrible to admit aloud, but I'm glad neither is around right now.
^ thanks for taking the words out of my mouth :P
Audience is literally everything I cannot stress this enough. There is this erroneous idea that you should always be trying to persuade the person you're arguing with--to change their mind--and it's just a losing battle most of the time. When you are arguing with someone, you or the other person are trying to win--to at least, trying not to lose. Moreso if there is an audience. Your goal in online discussion spaces is not to convince that person. It is to persuade the silent audience that you are reasonable, the the other person is not. You will never know if you actually succeeded, because the nature of a silent audience is the veneer of nonparticipation. But you should imagine that there is always a removed, disinterested judge watching you volley back and forth. That's the people that are persuadable -- the ones who are not overt about their racism, maybe privately agree with the racist things being said, but are mindful enough of social opprobrium to keep it to themselves.
NNID: Hakkekage
Here’s the local paper, which mentions the death threats.
CNN coverage that does not.
Yes, it's hard. But you are also in the unique position of adding personal stakes to their behavior. That's a large part of the problem with complacent or casual racist beliefs--the people harboring them haven't exactly developed a robust theory of their prejudices such that they can defend it to the point of being willing to lose you. And if they have, then you have an even more entrenched problem on your hands that further justifies you countering "punitively" -- aka, not backing down on your robust theory of racial justice and equality, coming over less, relying on her less, speaking to her less and less. Yes it feels Pyrrhic. But changing someone's deeply held racism doesn't happen over the course of a conversation. It happens because behavior has consequences, and the rest of society isn't going to deliver that to her. If you are unwilling to bear the costs of delivering those consequences, everyone would understand. But "racism at home" is nearly always trench warfare for this reason. It is a fiction that politics can be separated from mundane life. It is a fiction that racial politics can be separated from mundane life. If you are starting from that false premise, you are starting on her turf--and you will not change her mind.
NNID: Hakkekage
As far as their own personal views on race, they think it mostly doesn't matter. Everybody gets shit on, some more than others, some less. That's never gonna change. If asked about black and brown people getting murdered, their response is that's bad, but what can you do? Gotta work tomorrow morning and got lots of overtime, kids gotta be taken care of, chores and errands done. All I wanna do over the weekend is rest or do something fun. I'm already burdened, I can't bear any more, especially about evil that I can't and cannot ever be changed.
In a shocking twist, my dad is a mild alcoholic. My mom had a breakdown a few years ago, hardly leaving her bed at all. Couldn't afford any hospital visit. Dads employer insurance is not great but not total shit either so my mom can afford meds and therapy. She's mostly OK nowadays.
My point is that for my immediate and extended family, first surviving and then maintaining a good quality of life takes up all their energy so there is nothing left for issues like racism. Also nothing ever changes for those not rich no matter who is in power so voting is futile. It's kinda defeatist but understandably so. I severely doubt my family is unique.
I don't use Facebook. It seemed frankly pointless to me from the start and now I think it is pure evil, a horrible poison for your mind and soul, and should be nuked from orbit as it's the only way to be sure. I've looked at family pages a handful of times and not seen anything bad. Thankfully I'm not pushed to use it. My family learned a long time ago I'm antisocial. They simply love and accept me for who I am.
Thanks for that @Hakkekage
I'm coming around to that realization now, and I've been basically rehearsing in my head what next steps to make, and how much of this I need to communicate with them.
Do I need to have a sit-down with them, to draw lines in the sand as to what I consider unacceptable behaviour, so that they at least know what my position is, and why I'm backing off from them, even if they disagree or think I'm being hysterical, or do I simply stay quiet, and back off slowly, and let them figure it out, assuming they ever do?
If they are Christian, the "Blessed be the Poor, No 'Everyone is blessed" and the one with the Jewish slave (labelled black lives matter) being beaten as an Egyptian official (labelled "All Lives Matter") are effective.
Who are "they/them" in this question? If you're asking whether you should try to have a straightforward and honest conversation with the racists in your life, I'm going to say "no" unless the point is to practice owning them so that you're able to do that effectively when the time is right. If you're asking whether you should try to work the audience so they're not so sympathetic to the racists, then I'm going to say "yes", because of the zeroth rule.
My dad now reflexively and profusely apologizes within seconds of realizing he’s shared a talking point he heard on Rush Limbaugh that day
I think without a sit-down you cannot expect them to understand your change in behavior. But a sit-down will be fraught. You will likely be baited into saying something hurtful in response to something they say to you. It's nature.
It's cynical, but you have a more reasonable justification you can articulate that isn't "I want to punish you for your beliefs" (under no circumstances should you say that; it will exacerbate their grievance). You have a daughter. You want her to grow up respecting people from all walks of life. You struggle every day to raise her into the kind of gentle, understanding, well-rounded person who can end these cycles of hatred and prejudice. From the way your mother has behaved both in her initial expression of beliefs and her defense of them, you are a) personally hurt and b) cannot trust her not to feed poisonous attitudes to your daughter, especially since she won't acknowledge or identify why you object to those beliefs. For that reason, you think it is best that you disengage from her and the rest of the family until your mother is ready to engage with her beliefs, or at least be able to articulate the ones you oppose and why you oppose them.
You don't need to change her mind. You just need to change her public behavior, and her behavior around you.
NNID: Hakkekage
There are major toxic elements in my family line - abusers, thieves, and killers. My immediate family has barely any interaction with them, and it's allowed us to focus on the good people in our lives and to become better people.
Blood is just an ice breaker.
(h/t Mike Arfken)
I recommend watching this vlog by Matt Christman of Chapo Trap House:
He's been putting out a bunch of solid content lately and says some stuff about the alienating power of the capitalist system that has resonated with me, and that you might be able to take to your family in some way.
For a more academic treatment of the same subject, the three-part series The ABCs of Capitalism put out by Vivek Chibber and Jacobin is also really good. You can download the free ebooks here or watch a video version on the Jacobin Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzGUT9PjV3SMBwjWXUYh4HA/videos
I don't have any friends, really, which makes it a thousand times harder.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Barring particularly harrowing circumstances, this can change, especially with the internet.
First off, I highly recommend adding the With Friends Like These podcast to your listening queues. It's from the Crooked Media / Pod Save America crew, but it's very different from the rest of their offerings. There's a lot of deep dives on difficult conversations to change minds in interviews with activists, former white supremacists, and the like, and it's a great way to hear from people who engage with this thoughtfully on a regular basis.
That said, I agree with much of the above in regards to racism in public spaces, whether professional forums, Facebook, public officials, whatever. There should be zero tolerance for that type of language or behavior, and there should be clear, public consequences for it. There is some amount of survey data to support that what we are seeing now is not that people are suddenly more racist, but that being performatively racist has just become more acceptable. As a result, more people feel comfortable doing it, and you visibly see more of it. The response to that is pretty simple. Shut that shit down, publicly.
But for someone you love, you are close to, who is intricately involved in your life or that of your children, "identify their weaknesses" and "own them when the time is right" is a great recipe for destroying family relationships with long term consequences. It's also incredibly unlikely to change their mind. That may not matter for a second cousin on Facebook, but it can be huge when it's your mother who watches the kids every other weekend. It also is different when you genuinely love and care about the person in question, and you want to help them more than you want to "win." With that in mind, here's the couple of suggestions I'd share. I'm not a professional in this space by any means, but I have tried several of these in my own life, and it rings true to how I think about human behavior.
1. Just listen. Not because you need to learn something about why racism is actually good, but you need to create a space for them to talk about these things without being in immediate conflict. Even to the point of saying, "Let's agree that neither of us is going to try to change the others' minds. I just want to understand where you're coming from, or why you've found some of my positions so frustrating." Encourage them with questions about why they feel specific ways about things. This does several things. First, it lowers the tone on racial conversations from the (understandably) heated exchanges happening on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Second, it gives you an idea of what is driving their beliefs, what experiences and identities you might need to come back to later. Third, it actually forces them to think through and articulate why they believe the things they do. They might not have actually done this before, and the exercise itself can start to prompt self-questioning for sincerely well-intentioned individuals.
2. Bring it back to people. Have you ever known someone who's changed deeply-held, personal beliefs on the basis of well-crafted white papers? Anyone? Human beings just don't work like that, particularly for deeply-held beliefs that touch on personal identities (more below). Arguing about economic return on food stamps or racial disparities in income mobility can be helpful for those public arguments above, but they're unlikely to change you mom's mind over morning coffee. But if you bring it down to a specific person or family experience (ideally someone they know or could know locally), that's something that most people can relate to as human beings without triggering other beliefs (again, below). It may also be necessary since many people holding implicitly or unconsidered racist views may not have close personal relationships or experiences with black or brown people. Helping them walk in the shoes of a specific person makes the subject relatable in a way they might never encounter otherwise. And it lets you show the harm that their (implicit) beliefs can cause to a real, specific person. In a sense, that's what we're seeing right now. People aren't (proximally, immediately) protesting now because of systemic police brutality. The police were just as brutal three weeks ago. People are spurred to action because George Floyd is a person, and seeing the human suffering in his experience cuts across the layers of dehumanization that population statistics provide.
3. Trigger the right identities. People can be thought of as being defined by multiple overlapping, intersecting identities (Ezra Klein's Why We're Polarized is a fantastic read on this). Gamer. White person. Farmer. Lawyer. Mother. Conservative. Minnesotan. Hobbyist gardener. Each person's mixture is different, and some identities are stronger than others. When someone's identity is threatened, it provokes an emotional response. The deeper the identity, the stronger the response. And human psychology consistently shows that these identities are more powerful than reason (which is why you can't argue someone out of a religious belief, or providing CDC data makes anti-vaxxers more oppositional than ever). When you post #BlackLivesMatter or #ACAB, you're threatening an entire range of their deepest-held identities (White. Conservative. Law-abiding. Non-violent. Rural. Protective.), and the emotional, defensive response will overwhelm any potential for honest conversation. However, if you're thoughtful about #2, you can positively leverage different identities. Mother. Father. Nurturer. Justice. Love. Navigating this is deeply, deeply personal, and can only happen if you've actually done #1 first.
For my own example, my in-laws are rural, deeply conservative, and often implicitly racist. Conservatism, Republicanism, and Christian beliefs are some of their deepest held identities. If I talk about the need for immigration reform, universal healthcare, or social safety nets, they shut down, almost violently. It breeds bitterness and resentment. But I also know that being a Parent and being Loving are deeply held identities of theirs as well. So I've talked about a Hispanic family I know in our own community. Their daughter has brain cancer, and their mother is dying of heart failure. But they are undocumented. How should we respond to their need? What would Christ do for them? Suddenly we're triggering different identities while sidestepping others, and it's a place more productive conversations can happen.
Just my thoughts, your mileage may vary. There are absolutely toxic relatives you should cut out of your life. But for people close to you, you may be the only one in the position to reach out and help them change. But this takes work, and it takes time. These shifts happen over years, not weekends. But if you love someone, it's worth it.
He's an Iraq/Afghanistan vet, and he was in a bad way when he came back. I also was still very much narrow-minded back then ("there doesnt need to be a black history month", etc. The usual racist shit people say when they dont think they are racist). It feels like if I'd have woken up sooner, he might be a better person. As it is now, well. He moved to Texas from Alaska a few years ago to try and join CBPD. That should really give you an idea.
Most of my family is the implicit racist, and I understand that(but still push against it. It is hard with my parents though because they still help a lot financially). My brother, though, is outspoken about it and his outlook feels like a personal failing on my part.
I dont have much of a point here, other than just finally saying outloud my brother is deeply racist and I feel like that is my fault for not guiding him out of it when he still looked up to and listened to me.
But when I got to my mid to late 20s and I become more aware of politics. I initially did consider myself Republican, because I naively listened to my conservative coworkers too much and I did vote for Bush in 2000, I didn't even really follow the debates or anything so I didn't even hear Bush speak until after he won and gave his acceptance speech. Right after I heard his speech, I realized that I had made a huge mistake and the guy was a moron. It was around this time that I changed my registration to be Independent because even though I agreed with Democrats, I had decided that parties are just a bad idea and even though I had swung to the left, and have voted left ever since, I wasn't going to join any party (and I still hold this opinion).
But of course, as you can probably imagine, as far as relatives were concerned, politics didn't start becoming an issue until Obama and 2008. I don't recall them saying anything particularly negative about Obama, I just remember finding out that from the 1st aunt and uncle that I lived with, that my aunt was very pro Sarah Palin (my aunt was very Catholic) and my uncle would rant about Obamacare every time I saw him. This definitely drove a wedge between them and I and I saw them less and less.
The 2nd aunt and uncle I had spent the most time with during my HS years never appeared very political at all to me...until recently. I want to believe they didn't vote for Trump, but maybe I'm just being naive again. But I know they were anti-Hillary. So I choose to believe they voted 3rd party. But then they started inviting me to Thanksgiving and Christmas more regularly and that's where the repeated rants started. The first one I remember was my uncle ranting about net neutrality and being in favor of the repeal even though he knew nothing about the internet and just focusing on the "another Obama regulation" aspect of it. Since then they've ranted about being against even the concept of climate change, and of course ranted against Colin Kaepernick. But they've always been very measured in their rants. When they ranted against Kaepernick, it was not about being offended at his protests or anything about police brutality, it was always under framing the idea that he was just doing it for publicity. I've also never heard them say anything specifically pro-Trump or even pro-Republican, just always anti-left. Dunno if they're doing that just for my benefit. But yeah, I've been starting to think about ways of possibly getting out of visiting them. Even politics aside, we just don't really have a ton in common. I realized too late that I could have done on-call work over the previous holiday season which quite honestly, would have been preferable to more rants. Sadly, I was terminated from my job because of COVID-19 so unless my next job has on-call needs, I don't know if that will be an option for the upcoming holidays.
Sometimes I don't think it's even about the politics. I think they just like to fight. They like to wager on _everything_ right down to how long the Christmas sermon at their church will take. I like a good argument...but damn.
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
Personally I think it's a noble thing to, but it's fine if you don't.
What if they insist on trying to "fix" me, by telling me to shut up when I express my opinion?
I hit "Agree" on your post because as a strategy for changing minds I think the three-step process you've laid out is the most practical and effective set of strategies. But I disagree very strongly with this. Not only is it wrong to suggest that any one person may be the only one to try to make a change--anyone can listen, anyone can try to find a human connection, and anyone can trigger the right identities, though as you said, it takes time--but if you actually think that because you love someone you're the only one who can help them change, you're probably struggling with some distorted thinking of your own that makes you one of the worst people to try. I haven't listened to any of those podcasts yet but I've downloaded the new season and will put them on while I'm doing some chores, maybe they'll teach me something I'm not aware of and if so I'll report back. If there are any specific back-episodes you want to recommend, I'll check them out as well. For now, though, the story of reform I know the most about is that of Christian Picciolini, and in his case it wasn't a family member who helped bring him around (https://www.npr.org/2017/10/06/555934000/the-man-who-helped-change-a-neo-nazi-s-mind).
Aside from familial ones, which is where I find myself.
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