Quote:
Originally Posted by OnerDriver
The reason is racism/bigotry. We're not arguing, I hope, that racism does exist. They're not sensitive or misunderstand.
My point was to identify if "the talk" would be beneficial in pre-empting some adult going in a scenario they're well aware of. I believe you made the point of elucidating to many that racism/bigotry exist.
I gave the examples of "poor/rich" not to justify any actions/behaviours, but rather to use them as metaphors for how pre-empting someone to something they, as adults, are already aware and do not care. Call it "naïvety", but sometimes I believe not being aware of the ugliness of the world is helpful.
e.g.: "what are you doing with this N, when you could be with a guy like me?" - "If you have to ask that question, you wouldn't understand what kind of person he is and why I am with him" as in "I do not care what you think of him, I like him for who he is", and case closed.
You contend that not being aware could be a potential blow and the person could not have all resources to deal with it immediately. I respect that.
I used a personal experience when I was the one pre-empted, and I did not feel particularly well-cared for (as in, I would prefer if the person herself had been naïve and not "self-aware" of the fact that, in hers and other people's eyes, I was the "different" one). Call me a dreamer. I like that expression that says that racism exists because we keep talking about it (in a sense of, nobody is different as we're all humans).
So if you would call that guy an "asshole" had he said to her "what are you doing with this poor guy, when I can give you all the jewelry you want", why can't you because he used your skin colour as reason for her not to be with you and to be with him?
The "low hanging fruit" sentence was to say that we, as humans, use whatever it is we find "detrimental" about someone else to influence others. He, as an asshole in this case, would've used any other "aspect" of you to influence her to screw him. It could be that you have a big nose, or are short, anything about you you cannot change, like your skin colour. Point was, how she would react to that in that scenario with or without being "warned".
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It's not about pre-empting anyone else's behavior as we cannot control others. It is about having every possible tool to manage behavior in case the situation occurs.
Your parallelism between an intrinsic attribute of a human being vs externally acquired items is a bit thin, IMHO. I mean no offense to you.
The parallelism about noses or weight or stature is still a bit thin but better. Unfortunately the leading bits of ugliness in our country still resides around race. This is on both sides. The decision to use something so charged as race in this manner beggars belief.
Great response and I'm enjoying the discourse!
Cheers-mk