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The White People Who Need Proof of Racism
I will never again fall for the Show-Me-Proof-of-Racism gotcha-request that many white people resort to whenever a black person or another person of color expresses their experience with racism.
You can dig up study after study, research after research, video after video, testimony after testimony, expert after expert, scholar after scholar, scientist after scientist from the most prestigious academic, journalistic, and scientific institutions in the entire world and it won’t matter a single, solitary bit.
Whatever proof you show — whether it is evidence to demonstrate the presence of systemic racism or social racism; implicit racism or explicit racism; conscious racism or unconscious racism — will never be enough. They will employ every move-the-goal-post, bait-and-switch, logical-fallacy, false-equivalence, appeal-to-the-absurd, argumentum-ad-dictionarium, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, bar-raising, unrealistic-expectation, persnickety-pseudo-science tactic at their disposal to deny that what you’ve brought forth is solid and correct — or even mildly reasonable. And the gag is that if you don’t bring it forth, they’ll accuse you of being The Real Racist ®. They think this is the perfect no-win situation in which to place you.
They will ask you if you can read the minds of white people. Yes. That’s their favorite one. That’s their standard of proof. The only way you will be able to prove racism to these white folks is if you’re telepathic. And even then, they’d question the accuracy of your telepathic abilities and will request a white telepath to verify your knowledge — and they will only believe the white telepath if they disagree with you and agree with them. Anything to avoid having to confront and admit that racism exists, that they benefit from it, and often participate in and perpetuate it.
You can dig up study after study, research after research, video after video, testimony after testimony, expert after expert, scholar after scholar, scientist after scientist from the most prestigious academic, journalistic, and scientific institutions in the entire world and it won’t matter a single, solitary bit.
Whatever proof you show — whether it is evidence to demonstrate the presence of systemic racism or social racism; implicit racism or explicit racism; conscious racism or unconscious racism — will never be enough. They will employ every move-the-goal-post, bait-and-switch, logical-fallacy, false-equivalence, appeal-to-the-absurd, argumentum-ad-dictionarium, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, bar-raising, unrealistic-expectation, persnickety-pseudo-science tactic at their disposal to deny that what you’ve brought forth is solid and correct — or even mildly reasonable. And the gag is that if you don’t bring it forth, they’ll accuse you of being The Real Racist ®. They think this is the perfect no-win situation in which to place you.
They will ask you if you can read the minds of white people. Yes. That’s their favorite one. That’s their standard of proof. The only way you will be able to prove racism to these white folks is if you’re telepathic. And even then, they’d question the accuracy of your telepathic abilities and will request a white telepath to verify your knowledge — and they will only believe the white telepath if they disagree with you and agree with them. Anything to avoid having to confront and admit that racism exists, that they benefit from it, and often participate in and perpetuate it.
https://medium.com/SonofBaldwin/the-white-people-who-need-proof-of-racism-b59cb342c096
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