How to be less racist/bigotred?
How to be less racist/bigotred?
So I am a part of the LGBTQ community and work in a big city in middle europe. A lot of my coworkers are religios and have a foreign background. They are mostly very nationalist and homo-/transphobic. I hate them for their blind hate and bigotry, which wont change. I have realised, that I have become a bit bigotred towards people like them in the last few months, which is, even tho my biases often revealed to be true, just unfair to them. How could I stop that?
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Bravo to you for seeing people as people. Obviously none of your coworkers made a conscious choice to be intolerant, it's just an emergent phenomenon given their experience with the people around them, an effect you're noticing happen in yourself.
I don't know how to achieve it, but I think there is only one way to combat intolerance, and that is to move people from an outgroup to an ingroup. People tend to not care about people in their outgroup, but tend to be intolerant of people they fear in their outgroup. People who have their family, their church, and their compatriots in their ingroups are referred to as nationalists, and when nationalists are convinced to fear their outgroup, you get fascism.
They are intolerant of the LGBTQ community because they have (unfounded) fears that there is an "agenda" to erode their religions and force people to be like them. You are intolerant of them because you have (often well founded) fears that their actions fuel systemic intolerance that has a very real impact on your livelihood.
I think the only way to flip this on its head is to break this pattern, for each of you to view each other as part of your ingroups. Now, it would be fair to say that's too hard, that would be unreasonably difficult to become that close to them, and you'd probably be right. I think that's why many in this thread have instead settled for seeing them as less than human, not worth "saving". But that's what I think would need to happen.
it's just an emergent phenomenon given their experience with the people around them
It's usually caused by lack of experience with such people and a heap of prejudice and religion.
By claiming it's not their choice sounds like you're claiming they are not responsible for their behavior which is IMHO pretty dangerous.
Do you believe you would behave any differently if you were working from the same information they are? If no, then we agree. If yes, then you believe you are somehow inherently superior to them. I think that is pretty dangerous.
Do you believe you would behave any differently if you were working from the same information they are?
Yes. I was raised as a Christian and was fed not that dissimilar bullsh*t from an early age. At that point access to information was way, way worse (no internet, small village...) than now, yet it wasn't that crazy difficult to realize what crap it was. IMNSHO there's no excuse today.
Obviously none of your coworkers made a conscious choice to be intolerant
That's a huge, and demonstrably incorrect, assumption. I have a friend that treats everyone like that, they're super outgoing, throw huge parties, and invite every type of person you can imagine, and they all show up because they're excellent parties. The bigoted racists gather in their own group (they easily find each other by their stupid shirts) make off color jokes, loudly, except the really bad ones, which they quietly say to each other and snicker like teenagers. I tend to blend in to the background and overhear a lot of what they say to each other. They chose to hate, they view certain humans as lesser beings, and repeatedly act in ways to explicitly prove they're not part of any group outside their own, on purpose. They want, and deserve to be excluded until they're willing to change.
Spoiler
They won't, even if they say they will. Believing them will make your life miserable, and then they'll beg you to let them do it again.
Excellent comment. I think it’s fair to say that a lot of friendships start with realising you have something in common with someone else. When you focus too much on what’s different between you and someone else, like only thinking of someone as being part of the lgbtqi+ community, or being a religious nut, you don’t give yourself head space to see the other things that could potentially unite you.
It's also tempting to think that certain politically motivated groups have exploiting nationalism down to a science at this point. It sure seems that way if you look at the media. So it could be that OP has more work cut out for them than is tenable.
Still, if my options are: go to war, or treat people like humans and then go to war, I'll choose the latter. Personally, I'd rather die at the hands of a bigot than live treating anyone as irredeemable subhuman garbage. But I understand why living is the more important priority for most people. So it goes...