This Is What I Hate About People Like You

Last week, after a particularly long and frustrating conversation, a reader asked me how I decide who to engage with. At what point do I decide that a conversation is a waste of time and move on?

And the simple answer is, I try not to look at conversations as a waste of time. If I manage to change somebody’s thinking, even a little bit (or if they manage to change mine), I consider that conversation a success. So I’ll usually persevere until it becomes obvious that neither is going to happen.

Now, to be clear, a lot of my conversations aren’t successes. Some end before they begin, others are with people so unhinged that finding common ground is impossible, and many, like this conversation with Cory, get off on the wrong foot.

But as Cory proves, sometimes, it’s worth persevering.

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Cory:

Articles about race should enforce the belief that to be Black is to live in a constant state of fear and oppression

Are you suggesting that articles about race should not touch on how systemic racism continues to effect Black Americans? Because pretending those challenges don’t exist doesn’t make them disappear.

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Steve QJ:

Hahaha, it never ceases to amaze me. Thank you Cory for explaining to me that pretending racism doesn’t exist doesn’t make it disappear. Even though I’ve been black my entire life, this simple truth had escaped me. Please tell me more about what it’s like to be black?

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Cory:

So I was wrong and you’re not suggesting that people ignore the effects of racism? Because that’s what your phrasing suggested. Or did I misunderstand the tone of your point that listing the effects of racism necessarily enforces those effects?

Nice try with the strawman but I’m not questioning your experience as a Black man. I’m questioning a specific thing you said in your article and the very specific way you phrased it. So let’s stay on topic, shall we?

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Steve QJ:

Good God, this liberal arrogance is just so breathtaking.

First, why on Earth would you imagine that I think people should ignore the effects of racism? Do you think, for even a fraction of a second, that you care about this more than I do because you've read a little Robin DiAngelo or Ibram X Kendi? Isn't there a glimmer of self awareness within you that whispers, even if you're interpreting something I said that way, that you're likely wrong and that that should inform the tone of your question?

Informing me that ignoring racism doesn't make it disappear is such an incredibly patronising thing to say to a black person.

Black people are well aware of the problems we face. Do you think we need to be told over, and over again how evil racism is? Do you think it helps us in some way when people write articles about microagressions or leave sneering, arrogant comments on articles?

To be black is NOT to live in a constant state of fear and oppression. I want to see more than the worst, occasional aspects of my experience represented. I want to see more writing devoted to finding solutions and common ground than whining about old ladies who clutch their purse when they see a person of colour. I want genuine conversation instead of snarky, know-it-all idiots who think that bad-faith misinterpretations on the internet count as activism. Is that okay with you? Or does it mess with your saviour complex?

Jesus, well done on being the first person in a very long time who is so oblivious and arrogant that you actually made me cross on the internet.

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Cory:

First, why on Earth would you imagine that I think people should ignore the effects of racism?

Because you said we should:

"Articles about race should enforce the belief that to be black is to live in a constant state of fear and oppression."

Your phrasing clearly implies a belief that articles about race "enforce" a certain perception of reality. Rather than just reporting on the facts of existence. In true conservative fashion, you're shooting the messenger and blaming them for a state of being which they are merely reporting.

If you want to focus on more positive topics, please, go do so. But to imply, as you did, that someone trying to educate others (and no, I am absolutely not talking about me educating you on race, that would be absurd, but I 100% guarantee that was your first thought based on your previous statements) about the reality of race is somehow causing that reality themselves is also absurd.

My issue with you is not over the topic of race, at all. It's that you are pushing this idea, common among conservatives, that merely talking about something is sufficient to make it so. And thereby, if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. But please continue to misconstrue what I've gone to great lengths to make obvious. It's what conservatives do.

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“It's what conservatives do.”

Subscribers will remember my recent conversation about the conservative/liberal divide. This childish idea that only one side is guilty of cherry-picking and bad faith misconstruals is especially ironic considering this entire conversation is based on an incredibly bad-faith misconstrual of a single line in my article.

In fact, I’m still not sure how Cory is reading that line and claiming that the phrasing “clearly implies” that I want to ignore racism. Nor how I’m blaming “them” (“them” being black people of which I AM ONE!!!) for a state of being which “they” are merely reporting.

Every time I challenge the notion that black people are helpless victims living in a state of constant race-related misery, some liberal, white “anti-racist” will pop up to tell me how wrong I am. Perpetual victimhood is the only way they can understand black people. I’m not sure I can fully express how infuriating it is. But at least it gave me an opportunity to make a point I’d been thinking about for a while.

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Steve QJ:

In true conservative fashion

This is the problem with discourse today. People minds are so broken by binaries like black and white, republican and conservative, left and right, that they've lost the ability to process ideas with any nuance. I couldn't be further from a conservative if I tried. Read some of my articles on politics. See how conservative I am.

Again. Do you think that black people aren't already aware of their experience? Do you think we need those articles so that we know racism exists? You know who these articles are really for? White people! Articles don't create reality, how obviously absurd. They create a perception of reality (for people who aren't actually living it) that is so warped that a white man feels comfortable arrogantly criticising a black man for his thoughts about articles which mischaraterise HIS OWN EXPERIENCE.

I've already told you how preposterous it is to think that I'm saying that not talking about racism makes it cease to exist. Why are you still repeating this asinine accusation? I'm not pushing anything. I'm stating the fact that too many of the articles written about race today are pure self-serving bullshit which only serve to increases division.

You think that articles about the "Four Words You Should Stop Saying To Black People" actually help us? You think people write them because they think it's going to end racism? You think that racists will read them and take notes and stop discriminating?

These articles are for people like you, so that you get to feel like you're one of the "good whites" when you say you'd never dream of saying any of those things. They attract clicks and outrage. They make money. They preach meaninglessly to the converted. And they make the genuine work of anti-racism look ridiculous by association.

They are ammunition for the conservatives who are just dying to say, "Look how ridiculous this whole anti-racism thing is. All they have left to talk about is racist old ladies and microaggressions". The countless articles using "white people" as a pejorative, allow people, some of whom might even have been reachable, to dismiss black people as just as racist as those they're claiming to fight.

Believe me when I say, I have thought about these issues far more deeply and for far longer than you have. I'm always happy to have a conversation. But if all you have are stupid assertions and arrogance, take them elsewhere.

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“These articles are for people like you…”

As I said, I’ve had this thought numerous times whilst reading the screeds about race and racism that litter the internet, but I’d never really expressed it before.

Black people already know what life is like as a black person. We don’t need to learn “the seven words you’re not supposed to say” to black people, or the “five things your black friends wish you'd stop doing”. We’ve borne the weight of micro-aggressions (God, I hate this term) and lived to tell the tale.

Instead, when I scroll through the comments of articles like this, I invariably find white people patting themselves on the back for not being guilty of whatever behaviour is being criticised, or performing their “mea culpas” for the times when they were (which nowadays is just a different form of patting themselves on the back).

And all this whilst telling themselves that this self-congratulation actually helps black people in some way. It doesn’t. Unless you count the race-grifter who profits from cynically writing this garbage.

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Cory:

The countless articles using "white people" as a pejorative, allow people, some of whom might even have been reachable, to dismiss black people as just as racist as those they're claiming to fight.

You're absolutely right that phrasing things a certain way can alienate people unintentionally.

palpatineironic.gif

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Steve QJ:

This is what I hate about people like you. You talk as if you care but you don't. All of this is just a fun, rhetorical game that you duck out of with sarcasm and memes as soon as you run out of talking points. You're more than happy to argue in bad-faith because you never really gave a shit in the first place.

No interest in substance. No interest in understanding and engaging. No interest in good-faith conversation. I wish you'd be honest about the fact that you just want to kill some time online (and maybe win some virtue signalling points) instead of pretending that you're actually trying to "help". At least we'd all know where we stood. The saddest thing is that the conservatives I get in my comments occasionally are often far less toxic than this.

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Cory:

I'm more than willing to engage in thoughtful, useful discussion when the person I'm chatting with does the same.

My first comment to you was asking for clarification on something you wrote, something which gave me the impression you would rather sweep problems under the rug than deal with them constructively. I'm happy to concede that that impression was incorrect, but nothing in your response to me was dedicated to correcting that misapprehension. No, you thought a better use of you (and my) time was to belittle me.

Go back and re-read your response:

"Hahaha, it never ceases to amaze me. Thank you Cory for explaining to me that pretending racism doesn’t exist doesn’t maker (sic) it disappear. Even though I’ve been black my entire life, this simple truth had escaped me. Please tell me more about what it’s like to be black?"

Now, pretend you're me. You have an honest misunderstanding of something someone wrote, and you ask them for clarification. And that's the response you get back. Want to take a guess how seriously I'm going to take any further conversation with you after that?

I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.

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Steve QJ:

My first comment to you was asking for clarification on something you wrote, something which gave me the impression you would rather sweep problems under the rug than deal with them constructively

Actually, you're right. I was unnecessarily sarcastic. It's absolutely not my MO except for cases where I feel that that's how I'm being approached. Judging by this response it seems that neither of us presented the other with our best selves.

Now pretend you're me. You're a black guy and a white guy responds to an article you've written about racism with what seems to be a bad-faith reading of what you wrote. Nobody else has even come close to interpreting this line this way. In addition, he decides to talk down to you about what will and won't make racism disappear. Notice that I was so irritated by this line I didn't even answer your question.

"Are you suggesting that articles about race should not touch on how systemic racism continues to effect Black Americans? Because pretending those challenges don’t exist doesn’t make them disappear."

How do you think you'd perceive that guy? Then he doubles down on the condescension in the next reply. As I said, I spend a huge amount of my time writing and answering comments on the internet, yours was the first in I don't remember how long which felt so condescending that it actually made me angry.

You're absolutely right, I didn't need to be sarcastic, it wasn't helpful. But I don't know you. If you signal immediately that you're the type of person that talks down to strangers and talks to them as if you understand an issue which directly affects them better than they do, it's probably not going to be taken well.

Anyway, I wish we'd gotten off on the right foot. I'd much rather we'd spoken to each other like this from the start.

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“Actually, you're right. I was unnecessarily sarcastic.”

I’ll be honest, part of me really wishes I hadn’t written this.

For the record, I was exactly the right amount of sarcastic. If anything, I was less sarcastic than necessary. But Cory’s previous reply revealed somebody who was at least somewhat interested in a real conversation.

Neither of us behaved perfectly, and one of us was going to have to acknowledge it first. Seeing as we were discussing my article, why shouldn’t it be me?.

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Cory:

Thank you. You’re also right, there are a million better ways I could’ve expressed my thought. I’m sorry I chose one that led to this misunderstanding. I can honestly say I learned something today, and in a good way.

Keep up the good fight.

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Steve QJ:

Man, shame we didn't start this way, glad we ended this way.

Peace.

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Cory:

You can say that again. Looking forward to seeing more articles from you and continuing to learn.

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Even while reading this conversation back months later, there are moments where my jaw clenches in frustration. There are points where I wish I’d pushed back harder or highlighted the arrogance on display more forcefully.

But a) we’d never have gotten to a resolution if I had, and b) it would’ve been easy for Cory to go away telling himself that he’d been unfairly attacked by some self-hating, conservative black man, instead of had his misconceptions challenged by a reasonable person who might understand something he doesn’t.

There’s no way of knowing whether Cory changed his ways, or immediately reverted to type after this exchange, but at least there’s a chance he did the former. And as frustrating as it is, this has to be good enough. Changing people’s minds is a long, slow game.

Long-time readers will remember people like Ray or Daniel. Did I imagine I could change their minds in a single conversation? No, of course not. But if we disengage from everybody who strikes us as stupid or arrogant or wrong at first, we end up, well, where we are right now; a world where discourse is increasingly polarised and our opinions and beliefs are rarely challenged. Perhaps the pain of a few long-winded conversations is worth it.