Microaggressions

[MineralMan]

50. I don't need to read them again. I wrote them.

Each of my statements is true. You cannot educate actual stupidity out of people. Ignorance, yes. Stupidity, no. And there will always be a plethora of stupid, bigoted, thoughtless people everywhere you go. That has always been the case, and that's not going to change.

Almost half of the population of the US are Republicans, for pete's sake. Why is that? Even though that party has anything but their interests in mind, and even though that should be self-evident, they still continue to vote for Republicans. We've been trying to educate them for decades, and yet they continue in their path.

How much less likely it is that we can educate petty bigotry out of the huge numbers of people with bigotry in their brains? And now, it's "microaggression." They don't even know they did it. They don't know why it's wrong. And they're not listening to you or anyone else. They can see no reason why it's a problem.

One on one. That's the only possible way. Speak up. Don't let shit pass. Speak directly to the offending person and explain why it's offensive. You have about a 25% chance of success...maybe. Discussion among people who are already more or less sensitive to such things won't do anything to help with the huge numbers of people who aren't. One on one works, at least sometimes.

The guy who says to a strange woman, "Smile" has no idea that he's done something wrong. If he did, he wouldn't say it. It's like the guy in the bar who tries the old "Hey, baby" line. I'd say to him, "Say, has that moronic crap worked well for you in the past? You might want to think about trying something less offensive. It might work better."

One on one.