cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17967345
I was encouraged to read biographies of important black figures in US history. About Abraham Lincoln. Various different things that very naturally led me to see blacks as peers.
Then i dated a black woman. Same person who was happy and strongly encouraged the books had strong negative reaction to dating.
Which is the parent. The post says to pick **one. **
It is not a nuanced or adult take on people. It is a reactionary purity test of an adolescent mind (regardless of OP’s age).
The same parent was both. OP does not allow that. But my mom was not purely one. Years of encouragement of specific reading wasn’t an accident.
Dichotomies. Brightnlines of either or… Are very often false choices that deceive the credulous or unskeptical.
And the fallacy your employing in the false equivalence. Just because your parents had the benevolence to allow different colored people into their public places and history lessons doesn’t mean they see them as equals.
The definition of racism is the belief that one race is inherently better than another. Good enough to share spaces and history books but not to mix blood doesn’t scream “we are all humans and equals”.
So it’s not a far leap to assume that your parent only accepts other races as far as their society of context has gone.
So it’s not a huge leap to assume which side of the photo they would’ve been on if their society of context was the one from the photo.
Obviously your parent would’ve been sitting at the table in defiance of that society’s cultural norms, defending their personal beliefs
…right?
These purity tests and shaming celebrations aren’t helpful.
They were never helpful when they were done to minorities. Effective for a time? Yes. But it galvanized.
I don’t need a galvanized enemy. I don’t need one that believes nothing will ever be good enough because a past sin means forever being a sinner.
We need discourse, persuasion and actual rhetoric.
I’m not saying bad is good. I’m saying effective isn’t the same as feeling righteous.
My parents aren’t who they were. But these tactics aren’t what changed them.
These tactics look like theyre far more about the feels than they are about changing things. And, no, I’m not defending gradualism. And my parents learned. But shame was never what did it.
