So, let's say I want to get roughly this message across to a certain sort of white person. In addition to having plenty of unacknowledged racism and privilege and the like, this person has some other unpleasant but shockingly common traits, namely that they're extremely attached to the idea that they're a Good Person who's Doing Just Fine, they get defensive pretty much immediately if something sounds at all accusatory - be it suggesting that they're not perfectly free of racism or suggesting that they may have neglected some mundane obligation - and once they get defensive they're never, ever going to accept the possibility that they have been truly in the wrong and need to change their behavior. How the hell do you even make partial progress with these people?
I know, the tempting answer is "those people just need to fucking grow up", but that doesn't actually change any minds. And, unfortunately, there are so many people who fit this pattern - I'd be tempted to say that it's the vast majority of humanity, really, but it's not like I have statistics for this. I suspect that, if there is an answer that gets results, it's in the space of "being diplomatic" that could be more accurately described as "being manipulative for a good cause", and I have my doubts that there are any experts on that here. But my real fear is that there just isn't a way to make progress with these people, and that all we can do is wait for them to die out and hope that the next generation of similarly problematic people freeze their worldviews at at least slightly more positive points on the spectrum than the older generations.
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Date: 2009-08-06 07:46 am (UTC)I know, the tempting answer is "those people just need to fucking grow up", but that doesn't actually change any minds. And, unfortunately, there are so many people who fit this pattern - I'd be tempted to say that it's the vast majority of humanity, really, but it's not like I have statistics for this. I suspect that, if there is an answer that gets results, it's in the space of "being diplomatic" that could be more accurately described as "being manipulative for a good cause", and I have my doubts that there are any experts on that here. But my real fear is that there just isn't a way to make progress with these people, and that all we can do is wait for them to die out and hope that the next generation of similarly problematic people freeze their worldviews at at least slightly more positive points on the spectrum than the older generations.