this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
412 points (94.0% liked)

United States | News & Politics

8309 readers
201 users here now

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think there's an interesting phenomenon where even white normies understand how demonically racist the American institutions are. Ideologically committed racists don't, but everyone else sees at least part of it. However, because this only gives you a negative assertion (don't trust what the courts say) and the isn't really a normative, absolute system we can trust in the absence of any reliable rulings from the hegemonic institutions, we're just left with a wide space of viable interpretations of reality, which lets people get off the hook for assuming reality must be close-ish to what said racist institutions uphold. That closeness between imagined reality and the reality white supremacy wishes to impose is what allows for people who aren't ideologically committed racists to passively accept the brutalization and murder of marginalized people. "Oh, I can't support those cruel acts, but the sad reality is they probably didn't happen for no reason either" is the refrain of the embarrassed white moderate.

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

“Oh, I can’t support those cruel acts, but the sad reality is they probably didn’t happen for no reason either” is the refrain of the embarrassed white moderate.

I'm ashamed to admit that specifically with regard to police brutality, I was in the "they must have had a reason" camp (without looking any further into it) for many more years than I had any excuse to be. Rodney King put a crack in that, but I was still pretty young then, and surrounded by my own privilege. It was many years later before I realized that sort of shit and worse was happening constantly.