@evan I am a racist person. I hate some people in my country because of their origin, I honestly think more than 90% of them live in my country only to spoil and exploit. But I do not say any of these thoughts (this one toot is a true exception). If you read any of my statements or hear me, you'd say I'm not a racist person. But I truly am. And I can't force my mindset to love them... Only when I see by their actions that they really love my country, I can appreciate and love them.

@evan Yes. I've had situations with friends where I've told them "You may not know it, but what you said is actually kind of racist" and their response has been "Oh gosh thanks for telling me. Tell me more about that if it's okay?" And to me that is a person who is not racist, or rather, has the amount of racism that you have living in America where we're all soaking in it and many of us are trying to do better. I also know racist people who are careful with their words but fly the wrong flags.

@evan I grew up with black and brown family in the South, growing up we used the phrase Tar Baby to refer to sticky situations from the original Br'er Rabbit tales. Never once had anyone in my family used it or meant it as a slur, same with gyped. I was mid-20s working in my first eng job when I said the situation we were in was a Tar Baby, the gasps that were gusped. I had no ill intention or malice, nor do I, but was ignorant that it was a slur.

@evan Yes and no. It's often useful to say "Hey, what you just said was racist" instead of making the conversation about whether the PERSON is racist. That said, people say racist things because of racist biases, and while it's certainly possible to be anti-racist, I'm not sure if it's really possible to not be racist at all in a racist society. But you can be racist and make non-racist statements, which I guess makes the fact that there's a difference trivial, if you want to be pedantic.

@evan

Non-racist people can quote what a racist says. We tend to ignore them but it's important to know what's going on in their minds so we can squash them if they're getting too big for their britches. You can see the result of a failure to do that pretty easily these days. But, to do so, good people have to go into their spaces and learn their plans an' shit. I think it's now called a "Cletus Safari" in journalistic circles. After the safari, you need to tell the Barts and Marges in the civilized areas what the bigots are up to.

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@evan Absolutely yes.
Every single person will make a racist statement, eventually.

What differentiates an isolated statement from being racist:
- is this a slip or a regular occurrence
- was it a genuine mistake and is the person genuinely interested in never making the mistake again
- is the person engaged in proactively learning to not make those mistakes

Not 100% guaranteed to work but good filtering.

@evan Yes, but the meaning of what is expressed is the only, truly, verifiable action of the event. We cannot fully verify the internal intent. So, is it possible? Yes. Is it verifiable? Not to my knowledge.

@evan

Obviously yes. For a person to be racist they must believe in racial hierarchy. It's possible for someone to hold such beliefs and act on them and not know that "racist" is the right word for what that is.

It's also possible for someone to say something that is based in these ideas without believing in them at all. Or realizing that they are blowing on a dog whistle.