Poll of the Day > Are formerly racist people worse than people that were never racist?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Or would they be just as good as anyone else that isn't racist as soon as they aren't racist anyone?

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I think it depends what they've done. If they had racial prejudices and then arrived to the conclusion those are wrong and changed their opinions but have never acted on those prejudices consciously then I think they'd still be a good person. If it's like a reformed KKK member who committed hate crimes then I think he's still a piece of shit.

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It totally depends on what they did when they held racist views and what they do now that they dont

Really though deciding which people are better/worse than others isnt really the best mindset to have in life

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As they were formally racist I'd say yes they are worse then those who have never been racist but I also believe people can have a chance at redemption depending the extent of their racism.

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On average, I'd say people who have reflected on their own prejudice are going to be more understanding than people who have never done so (or refuse to do so)

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If you want to hang a label round my neck, you could call me a "liberal" because for years, many of my views have been moderately left of centre. But I had to walk a long, rocky, and twisted road before I reached that destination. I say that because I'm ashamed to admit that I pissed away several years of my wasted youth as an activist on the extreme right. I'm a living, breathing example of that near-mythical political creature: a reformed neo-Nazi.

Older GameFAQers who know me from other boards and accounts probably wouldn't make that connection because -- thank God -- I'm a radically different person to the person I once was. The only relics I have left from that part of my life are a couple of tattoos plus the shaved head.

There's a huge gulf that separates me from that earlier life. One measure of that distance is that I went from supporting convicted loyalist terrorists in Ulster (in my time I've sloshed around with quite a few people you probably wouldn't want to share a drink, or a jail cell, with) to genuine human rights activism with organizations like Amnesty International. I turned my back on white separatist groups like the AWB and demonstrated against apartheid instead. (Yes, that's right: I am that old.)

So, what happened? Did I find Jesus? Fuck that. Instead, it was something I refused to believe would be possible: I fell in love with a black girl. It was a shock like having a beer glass smashed into my face. Which other metaphor should I go for here: it "turned my life turned upside down", or, "it opened a door and let in the light"? Whatever, you get the idea. I'm not going to bore you with an inspirational, heart-warming story of the redemptive, transforming power of love, blah blah.

So, am I a worse person or a better person than someone who never needed to make a journey like that? I don't know. All I know is, I was essentially a fucking car-crash failure as a normal human being and I spent a good chunk of my life since then working at being a far better person than I was. I don't beg for or expect forgiveness; I've tried to put things right because, quite simply, it was the right thing to do. I'm not going to pretend to be a hero, saint and martyr, and know I can still be a shitty person in some ways, on some days.

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It definitely gives them a worse start and makes people less likely to give them another chance.

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Given the topic's premise, they're probably much better people than those who were never racist at all, since they managed to overcome their entrenched views. However, pragmatically speaking, almost everybody is racist to a certain extent and beliefs generally don't make one person better or worse than another, even on a moral level. And, broadly speaking, virtue-signalling exists to make people who haven't done shit feel better about themselves. It's a shortcut to feeling important or good about yourself without actually doing anything.

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Zeus posted...

Given the topic's premise, they're probably much better people than those who were never racist at all, since they managed to overcome their entrenched views.

I'd rather folk not have those views to begin with. I mean it's great they have grown as a person but I wouldn't say that makes them better than folk who never had those views.

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Mead posted...

Really though deciding which people are better/worse than others isnt really the best mindset to have in life

Pretty much. There's a lot wrong with Catholicism, but one of the bits of its doctrine I do like is the idea that we should leave judging people on that sort of scale up to God and limit ourselves to smaller, more practically-focused judgements. That falls apart a bit without a belief in a God, but really, the existence of a heaven/hell is a prerequisite for such broader judgements to have any value in the first place.

Judging people meaningfully simply entails considering how they can be expected to behave now, and treating them accordingly. Somebody with a history of bad behaviour (such as racism) may be harder to trust now, but that's the only weight that history should carry. Tallying it up into any sort of "good person score" is really just silly, and more often than not will just result in treating somebody poorly who has repented sufficiently that distrusting them isn't reasonable.

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Any change to a more positive mindset should be praised.

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wwinterj25 posted...

I'd rather folk not have those views to begin with. I mean it's great they have grown as a person but I wouldn't say that makes them better than folk who never had those views.

Considering that peoples' initial views are largely a product of their environment, whether somebody holds a good view or bad view often reflects no agency on their part. (And how could it? People can't be expected to automatically distinguish views from the moment they're born.) Therefore somebody who has always had either advantageous or "proper" (using that word very broadly) social views was born with an advantage -- the same as somebody who was born into money -- where a person with disadvantageous or "improper" (again, very broad usage) social views is analogous as to having been born into poverty. Ask yourself this: Do you respect a person for having wealth more because they came into money through no effort of their own? Or do you respect wealth more when somebody worked for it?

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Zeus posted...

Ask yourself this: Do you respect a person for having wealth more because they came into money through no effort of their own? Or do you respect wealth more when somebody worked for it?

That's a bad analogy. Being born into money isn't the same as holding racist views just because.

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I've discussed this before, elsewhere on GameFAQS. I pissed away several years of my wasted (and now-distant) youth by serving my political apprenticeship as an activist on the extreme right. I'm a living, breathing example of that near-mythical creature: a reformed neo-Nazi.

Thank God, the only relics I've got left from those years are a couple of tattoos (Odal rune and wolf's hook, if you're interested) and the shaved head. There's a huge gulf that now separates me from that earlier life. One measure of that distance is that I went from supporting convicted loyalist terrorists in Ulster (in my time I've sloshed around with quite a few people you probably wouldn't want to share a drink, or a jail cell, with) to genuine human rights activism with organizations like Amnesty International. I turned my back on white separatist groups like the AWB and demonstrated against apartheid instead. (That's right: I am that old.)

So, what happened? Did I find Jesus? No, fuck that. Instead, it was something I refused to believe would be possible: I fell in love with a black girl, the one who became my first wife. It was a shock like having a beer glass smashed into my face. It was the start of a badly-needed education in how to be a proper, normal human being. I'm not going to bore you with an inspirational, heart-warming story of the redemptive, transforming power of love, blah blah. Having to sever connections with some people who were, let's say, a little surprised and less than happy at this unexpected turn of events was a rough fucking ride, not a fairytale. This is why it pisses me off to no end when some fuckwit bonehead tells me I'm only a liberal because I've locked myself into an ivory tower all my life.

Does all that make me a better person or a worse person that someone who never needed to make that same journey? No idea. Sometimes I feel like dragging my life around 180 degrees from where it was is the proudest achievement I've ever had (and probably ever will have), but there's always a shitload of regret that reminds me the slate isn't wiped squeaky clean.

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wwinterj25 posted...

That's a bad analogy. Being born into money isn't the same as holding racist views just because.

It's a perfect analogy. If somebody is raised in a family with racial views of some sort or another, they will likely hold those same views at some point in their life, which is a helluva lot more than a "just because." Most people have all kinds of beliefs that were imprinted onto them by their environment from an early age, which they've either kept or eventually rejected. However, they have little control over whether they believed them at some point. Beliefs and attitudes largely don't spring out of thin air.

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Alright Zeus. Believe what you want. A family upbringing isn't a excuse for being a shitty human being.

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Zeus posted...

If somebody is raised in a family with racial views of some sort or another, they will likely hold those same views at some point in their life

Sometimes radicalization can also be a conscious rejection of the milieu you were brought up in, and represent your own stupid, shitty idea of teenage rebellion.

But I agree, you can soak up the cultural values around you like a strip of litmus paper and that can gradually soften you up for radicalization too.

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I'd say the former racist was effectively a victim of psychological abuse so it can't be held against them. The fact they know better now shows that before the truth was hidden.
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