"Well anyone who knows anything about me knows I'm not a racist."
yeah-- by contrast, it happens to be true that anybody who knows anything about me knows that I'm a feminist. But how do they know that? Is it because a golden anti-misogynist aura shines off of me? No! They know because I NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT IT.
(There are lots of ways to display good-will, and I reluctantly concede that not all of them involve never shutting up, but you have to do something if you want anybody to notice or feel safe around you or whatever.)
& yes it is a little different because in discussions of race, unlike gender, I don't have the instinctive rock-solid certainty that I know what I am talking about and I know who should be allowed to live and who must be destroyed--or, in fact I do, but I am aware that I am not an authority in the same way--but if I never said anything, how would anybody know I cared or what I thought? They wouldn't. I think a lot of people just figure that if nobody's calling them a racist, they must be doing fine.
no subject
yeah-- by contrast, it happens to be true that anybody who knows anything about me knows that I'm a feminist. But how do they know that? Is it because a golden anti-misogynist aura shines off of me? No! They know because I NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT IT.
(There are lots of ways to display good-will, and I reluctantly concede that not all of them involve never shutting up, but you have to do something if you want anybody to notice or feel safe around you or whatever.)
& yes it is a little different because in discussions of race, unlike gender, I don't have the instinctive rock-solid certainty that I know what I am talking about and I know who should be allowed to live and who must be destroyed--or, in fact I do, but I am aware that I am not an authority in the same way--but if I never said anything, how would anybody know I cared or what I thought? They wouldn't. I think a lot of people just figure that if nobody's calling them a racist, they must be doing fine.