Anybody here have been through a 'racist' phase?

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I am asking what people here have been through a sort of "racist" phase in their life, or any other radical ideology. I want to confess that while there was a time in my history that I didn't really single out any race in particular, I did visit places like Stormfront since I felt back then that each race were to be preserved and equally distributed in the world. I still feel this way to a certain extent, but now it only ends where another free choice begins attitude. I want people to know that I am not a radical or racist anymore.

It is against the site rules to make racist posts. While I acknowledge that your post is not racist as such, it opens the doors to posts that are contrary to the site rules. Consequently I am locking this thread as it is too close to the line.

I've been requested to unlock this thread and a given a fair argument regarding why members should be able to discuss this issue. So the thread is now unlocked, but I want to make it clear that the thread is for discussing issues of racism, not for making any racist posts or racial slurs. If this thread crosses over the line (re the site rules) offending posts will be removed and/or the thread re-locked.

I went through one when I was 18. A black guy conned me with a sob story, over the course of the next year I was robbed twice by two different black men (always at a gas station). As cathartic as I was, I jumped right on the race thing as a way to punish the individuals who had wronged me (plus a lot more individuals). I think even by Texas standards, I was hateful.

As conservative as my parents were (are), when I was in the middle of one of my rants, I said the n-word and my mom really ripped into me and asked me if I'd say that to my school counselor or the family from church. I had to stop and think because I was blanketing hatred onto a lot of people I got along with just fine. Some time later I accepted that my hatred was irrational and counterproductive.

When I moved out I made a few black friends, one of whom died while we were overseas. I still call his family every month or so and visit them when I'm in Tx.

About 3 years ago when I was in a gas station, I was at the front of a line buying what gas I could in pocket change. I would have hated to be behind me in that line. Instead of getting PO'ed, the guy who was behind me (and happened to be African American) actually chipped in $6 for my gas, he didn't ask for a thing in return, he just wished me well and went his way. It would have been royally asinine if I had decided to hold onto that anger for 8 years and asked for $4 extra to make up for what the last black guy took.

Where I grew up people could be casually racist. It was all 'Paki shops' (corner shops) and 'Chinese' (the word for Chinese people and their restaurants) and my grandparent's generation frowned on interracial dating. I absorbed these attitudes when I was younger but dropped them when I was teenager. There was a somewhat racist version of Cornershop's 'Brimful of Asha' that they used to sing in school, and I stupidly sang it on the bus once, which caused a group of Pakistani boys to spit at me and call me all sorts of horrible things (though I definitely deserved to be slated for it, I still don't think I deserved to be gobbed on - though they probably felt like they needed to defend their honour.) I must've been 11 years old, so young and basically still ignorant (though I was still doing wrong.)

This might make me sound like a horrible person to most middle-class liberals but I grew up really quite poor and sort of the British equivalent of a redneck. I felt racism was wrong, but I wanted desperately to fit in (which didn't work, anyhow, because autism.) I'm very anti-racist now.

I still have issues with some aspects of Pakistani culture though - actually, just one part of it - it's how they do gender roles and how some of the men treat white women. I've come across people who are racist to white women in particular. They also make casual homophobic remarks more often that white boys do (and working class white boys can be pretty damn homophobic.) That's not race though, it's culture. I know not all Pakistani men are like that and I know there are plenty of misogynistic men in all cultures, but the Pakistani ones sometimes feel like it's their right to be like that and they don't get challenged on it as much because people don't want to look racist themselves.

People do change; I know I have. I think it's good that people can talk about having views like this in the past because I favour this stuff being out in the open, so it can be analysed and challenged.

Well, all people are racist, so I suppose you are asking about whether we've had phases where we CHOSE to be racist.

I can't say I've been through one.

My sister went through one, but to be fair, she had been attacked by a couple of black men, so I can see why she had it happen.

Back in high school, it was common for my friends and I to throw around the N word, and make derogatory homophobic remarks. I don't think any of us really hated anyone - we just thought we were sounding funny.
Then shortly after we graduated, a friend and I were in a movie theater, and something featuring The Song Of The South came on, with the old black guy singing that "Zippity Doo Daa" song. I for some reason quipped something about a n***er, when my friend whispered back, "Shhh, there's a black lady sitting ahead of us."
It struck me then, how that lady must have felt if she heard me. I never uttered something so ugly and hurtful - despite the harmless intent - again.
As a side note - I had mentioned our rather thoughtless homophobic language at that age. What I didn't know at the time was that my friend - the same one who had accompanied me to the movie theater that evening - was himself a closeted homosexual. I don't know how he managed to remain our friend with all our anti-gay talk. He in fact later was my best man at my wedding.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM[/youtube]Everybody has their moments of being racist once in a while but does not necessarily mean they are just plain racist all together people crack racist jokes from time to time and out of humor. There are some people who are just plain racist though and just dont like other people and join hate groups etc. Stereo types in the media and comedy is common on mainstream media.

I was born in the early 1960s and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. My mother had married and divorced an Italian and was living with me with her parents who were basically Scots-Irish mix with lots of Cherokee on my grandfather's side. My grandfather was one of those old Southern Democrats and about as racist as you could be without having a white robe hanging in your closet and some wrapped up crosses hidden in the garage. We lived in a neighborhood that was mostly white when they moved there in the 40's but by the late 70s and early 80s was about 75% black. He did not like that one bit, and he also did not like bussing one bit either.

At that time there was an elementary school and a high school within a mile of our house and that's where everyone went. It's where my mother went in the 50s. He was very worried about me going to school with blacks, and so my grandmother was too at least on the surface, and my mother certainly acted like she was as well when she was around him. I, on the other hand, didn't care one way or the other because I had never met a black person and only rarely seen one in passing in public and I didn't see what the big deal was. I was actually kind of curious as to what made everybody so strange about them.

That was not to be though. The Baptist church across the road from the elementary and high school build a school in record time. A nice, large, three story brick school with the church itself right in the center. It was a private Christian school and they gave you a test to get in. They didn't say they were white's only. They would give the test to anybody who asked. But you know what they did. Different tests for different kids. I don't remember the test, but I know that school filled up to maximum capacity fast with kids from all over the Western Section of Birmingham. They charged a good amount too, but the parents and grandparents were willing to pay it. There was a small problem of my mother and I being Catholic, which she had converted to and that might keep me out of it, so she joined that church really fast. There was a Catholic school a few more blocks up, which she had planned on sending me to but it was mixed and my grandfather, who ruled the roost, wouldn't hear of it.

Now, you would think that it would have been run like one of those genteel white's only country clubs where everybody knows whats going on but nobody comes right out and says it, wouldn't you? Nah, it was Birmingham in 1970, you know it wasn't. The preacher they got to run the church had bought right into their ideology. I don't even know if he was Baptist to begin with, he had an Italian name. Either way, he would preach the Gospel to us in chapel every week and lots of times he would throw in about how sinful this civil rights thing was, and how it was ruining the country and the family and God was going to punish America for it if something wasn't done to stop it - you know, like they say gay marriage is now. But he warned us against mixing, and we were kids and being yelled at in a big church, packed with school kids and the preachers voice was echoing all over like the way we imagined God's voice himself to sound, so we listened. The thing he didn't expect was that while the older kids had grown up being taught that and being taught in detail who to not like blacks and why to stay away and why this was bad, etc, we had just been told it was and to hush and let the grownups talk. So rather than inspire us to dislike black folks, he really just got the grammar school to be afraid of them. We didn't know why, but he said we should, so we were.

We even only played whites only private schools in basketball. The principal cancelled one game our school had with a private school that had a very few black kids in it. I'm going to leave the joke bout basketball just hanging there. No need to say it. Think that Woody Harrelson movie. Anyway, by this time quite a few of the older kids who started out hating black folks had gotten on the "hippie bus" as it was referred to back then, and although by then it was maybe 1972 and the Summer of Love had been over for four years, it was just now filtering its way down to Alabama. A bunch of the older kids protested. We were shocked that they weren't afraid and we all got brought into chapel and read the riot act about how God doesn't like mixing and he now also doesn't like hippies and radicals.

So, back to class for us for years and years. Same old, same old. Black kids walking down the sidewalk in front of our school in the mornings to theirs, while we hung out out front waiting on the bell. Some of the kids would talk to them and even hang out across at the Winn Dixie before school and after school. Word came back that there wasn't anything wrong with black people. Most of us believed it, but then some of us grew up buying into the rhetoric that was crammed down our throats and into our brains year after year and became a bit more hateful every year as we grew up and could "handle it".

Some of the kids parents had to take them out of the school in high school for various mixed public schools in the surrounding neighborhoods because they kept raising the cost to go there. That was because the principal was embezzeling but nobody knew that until about 1977, They found out quickly that we really were played on the race thing. Most weren't allowed to have black friends by their parents, but by that age kids were hanging out away from the house and doing what kids in the 70's did. I though, was stuck at home with an overprotective mother so I didn't hang out anywhere or meet anybody who didn't go to my school, white or black.

Fast forward. I actually met a black person when I was about 18 years old I think. A friend of a friend. An actual friend! I was impressed! How brave! I was very quiet and worried that something I had no idea was coming was going to happen at some point, but it didn't. Most people besides me and a handful of us snow fed swans knew that but, when we got away from that school we caught on quick and we also found out quick that it honestly wasn't a big deal. Completely anticlimactic. Oh, he's just a guy. Yeah well, she's just a girl. So, you like John Cougar? Yeah I do, I got the new Scorpions album last week. Cool! Lets go play it. And we, all of us folks that age liked Michael Jackson, which scandalized many of the white parents even though we were pretty much grown, but most didn't stop us from playing it at home.

I married my ex about that time, and he had a lot of black friends, and instead of being impressive and progressive and slightly dangerous, having black friends was nothing important anymore. If you had something in common with somebody, you were friends. And that's how I learned to not be a racist, despite all attempts to make me one.

There were many of them, just like in every white house in the city. The genteel pronounciation of the word "Negro" which was the correct and accepted term for blacks back in the early 60's had progressed into that other word and it was bandied about by everybody, us included. Until I was about ten I didn't know it was insulting or not the right word. Our teachers said it. The preacher said "Neeee-groooowwwws" all drawn out in a sarcastic way as if to show us what he really wanted to say. We all said it at school. Even in the history lessons learning about slavery. The word was interchangeable with slaves when you were discussing it in class, but not in papers because it was not correct English. That's how I found out. And, never say it around one of them, they will cut you! we were told. Oh. Thanks for telling me this before! What is the correct word then? "Negro, or Colored". On tv we heard "Black" more and more and that's what most of us said, and it slipped into class. Once an "Afro-American" slipped in but that was a made up term our teacher said, no better than the other one we could say but not use in our papers. Sure, kids said it. Sure, kids told jokes, but kids told jokes about every ethnicity. I know a bunch of good Italian jokes that I heard back then. It was what we did. Race kind of became a vague label that didn't apply to real people, just to some general idea of a group. So, it didn't bother us to use any of the slurs. Well, at least not until we started meeting people of those races, then we figured that we shouldn't say those words. And we used all the Archie Bunker words for everybody. Nobody said not to, it was ignored.

We actually figured out a lot on our own and learned a lot on our own and I think the group of us did very well for a group of kids who went all the way through a school that did not have one single teacher who had any type of teaching degree or anything like that. They just had to know the material. Some of them were in their early 20s themselves and just had to be white and pass a test showing that you know the stuff you were teaching. We figured out a whole lot in life for kids with an education that centered on separatism and not intellectual learning. Some went on to colleges, I did but didn't graduate. Some went and did really good things, like become lawyers. With that education, they really achieved a lot. And I'll tell you what they achieved even more, in my opinion. I'm on a FB group for my school, with a bunch of folks who went there. The topic of the all white school came up many times on the page, and it's a private group so it won't start a bunch of hate postings, but everybody there who posted said that looking back, that was an absolutely heinous thing to do, and that while we enjoyed our school days and friends and events and such, almost every single one of us feels some amount of shame for going there, even though we were sent.

The few racists left the page the first time that topic came up and theres about 400 or so people left on there now, so I think that most of us who went there managed to escape the indoctrination that they tried to put us through.

I'm pretty dang proud of us.

That's the racist period I went through, although I wasn't a racist. Just a supposed to be one.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

OliveOilMom you should consider writing for the public/marketing your writing if you don't already. Seriously. You really know how to use words, tell a story, and make a point. I'd read your stuff.

EDIT: On the topic at hand, no, I never had a racist phase at all and still don't comprehend it. I read the posts above and I am able to understand the factors at play and why people sometimes feel racist sentiments-- trauma, indoctrination, etc.-- but I just can't relate to it.

Maybe it has something to do with being a white girl in the eighties growing up with a brothers one of whom was black and one biracial, when we lived in a VERY white small town, although I can't say I particularly had an impression of racism around me either, even when there undoubtedly was some. I think it's one of those things I remained oblivious to for a long time because of my autism and resultant social isolation, and honestly that makes me feel guilty. I am happy that I grew up basically colorblind and remained that way, but I think I was ignorant of an injustice that was undoubtedly hurting the rest of my family and lots of other people.

I didn't have to face it until middle school when I started to hang out with a couple of other kids after we started getting a lot of latino immigrants in our town, and they would say repulsive things about "beaners" and "wetbacks" needing to "go back where they came from," treating them like they had cooties, etc. One girl thought she was being very enlightened when she said "I don't have a problem with the blacks and beaners, but I wouldn't ever marry one of them." I would express my confusion about these statements because they made literally no sense to me, and no one could ever explain them, they would just act like I was the stupid one. That was around the same time I began to take an interest in philosophy and current affairs... maybe it just took me that long to know or care about the world outside my head.

I don't think I've ever been truly racist, but I caught the "edgy racist joke that isn't actually very funny" bug off my dad. My dad is probably a bit racist in a vague sort of way, but he recognises it's a character flaw and laughs it off, so I don't really care about trying to "fix" him.

That's a very inspiring story, OOM.

I never was racist, until I came face to face with what's called "critical race theory". Critical race theory is a Marxist critique of civilization that says that ALL whites are INHERENTLY racist. Think about that for a second. IOW, racism in whites isn't a result of nurture, but nature. The argument is similar to the Nazi belief that the "bad" qualities they believed Jews possessed were inherent, and that the only way to get rid of the "Jewish problem" was genocide. The problem is, too many blacks and Latinos truly believe in critical race theory. Whites can do no right in CRT's view. After encountering lots of blacks who said "you're a white devil, you need to die for your racism" I finally threw up my hands and said "ok, if you want to think that way, then I'm racist, happy now?"

The thing is, I'm not TRULY racist, I just got tired of arguing with brick walls of critical race theory. I don't think any race deserves to be exterminated. CRT, at its logical extreme, advocates genocide of whites as a necessary step on the road to non-white liberation. Every thought and action of a white person is inherently racist according to CRT, and the only way to eliminate white racism is to eliminate whites. The scary thing is, the experience of Germany, which exterminated an estimated 15 million "inherently bad" people to make a perfect world, doesn't seem to deter critical race theorists.

I'm aware that the average black person on the street who totally buys into CRT hasn't thought through the implications, but I can assure you that the Marxists on top have, and they are eager to kill off the white race, while denouncing as "racist" white people's natural desire to live. Then you get into environmental Marxism, which wants to kill EVERYBODY. If there's anything inherently evil, it's a philosophy which wants to exterminate entire races. Most people can agree that Nazism is evil. Most people, however, aren't aware of CRT or environmental Marxism, which are IMO just as evil. I can see how some whites can join Nazi cells after beating their heads against CRT for far too long.

Every culture has problems with different cultures race has very little to do with it I have seen this first hand in many different areas as long as a person can adapt to the culture of the area they are accepted with almost no problems. Racism is just a blanket word used by liberals who have never been in the real world and seen how people of different cultural backgrounds act towards each other. I have seen black people who cant stand to be around and socialize with other black people and constantly call other black people the magic word and latinos and white people who act the same way. People will always have problems with people from other cultures sometimes those problems are valid other times they are not. Being able to understand and deal with issues we have is important to keep society stable and moving forward. Pointing out that a culture has major problems with crime and other social issues and wanting that culture to stop embracing those problems as something positive doesn't make you a racist.