Monday, April 10, 2017

Is it Bigotry?

We've all experienced it.  You are posting something on social media about the disenfranchised, those in poverty, indigenous, LGBTQ, people of colour, and the "bigot" comes along, telling you that your ideas are daft and radical. 

At a first glance, they look like a typical hate-filled racist, sexist, or homophobe, but as you look closer you see evidence that the person does not actually believe what they are saying. They are simply endorsing the oligarchy, and discriminatory policies are seen as "necessary evils." This is the person who says things like "you can't help those Aboriginal folks, they have to help themselves," or "women have the same chance anybody has to make a good living."

They are the "fiscal conservatives," and it seems more difficult than ever to separate the hate from the fiscal prudence. 

I've heard many people say that we've made no progress on race issues, and while that seems true, I could have sworn we were getting somewhere until the neo-con alt-right folks started to show up. 

Now it seems like half the people are still fighting to include everybody, and the other half seems to hate everybody, but for different reasons.  The fiscal conservative wants to "drill baby drill" not because he hates the planet.  The neo-con wants to prevent inner city people of colour from accessing education because she thinks it's not financially possible, not because she hates diversity.

It occurs to me that if there are two types of bigotry, there should be two types of anti-bigotry.

Just some quick thoughts, have a great day!