It's strange isn't it. Did I grow in up absolute privilege or have things changed that much? By privilege, I mean, all my grandparents were normal people. They likely had some crap takes and we had mild disagreements over the years. But they didn't go around swearing and using slurs (not just not in front of children) and there was a consensus that Nazis are bad and maybe racism and bigotry are bad too (albeit couched in liberalism).
It's crazy to see what western material conditions from circa 1950–2003 did to western minds. For anyone who needs evidence of the overdetermination of the economic base, this might be it.
Yeah I genuinely lack the imagination to picture parents who aren't saying slurs every other word. It seems like every white person around my parents' age is like that with incredibly rare exceptions.
I've seen it come in two varieties, ambient and active. My dad is ambient. He'll complain about black people and the state of the world, but it's incoherent and when pushed on it, he'll shut up, but it's still there in him. My mother is active, every 5 minutes she has to complain about the existence of Latino people or how Trump should be king of America. She'll bring it up no matter what is going on. She taught me the n-word before I had ever seen a black person for the first time. Actually deranged people.
It's strange isn't it. Did I grow in up absolute privilege or have things changed that much? By privilege, I mean, all my grandparents were normal people. They likely had some crap takes and we had mild disagreements over the years. But they didn't go around swearing and using slurs (not just not in front of children) and there was a consensus that Nazis are bad and maybe racism and bigotry are bad too (albeit couched in liberalism).
It's crazy to see what western material conditions from circa 1950–2003 did to western minds. For anyone who needs evidence of the overdetermination of the economic base, this might be it.
Yeah I genuinely lack the imagination to picture parents who aren't saying slurs every other word. It seems like every white person around my parents' age is like that with incredibly rare exceptions.
I've seen it come in two varieties, ambient and active. My dad is ambient. He'll complain about black people and the state of the world, but it's incoherent and when pushed on it, he'll shut up, but it's still there in him. My mother is active, every 5 minutes she has to complain about the existence of Latino people or how Trump should be king of America. She'll bring it up no matter what is going on. She taught me the n-word before I had ever seen a black person for the first time. Actually deranged people.