Is it racist to disagree? Many people claim they are racist but won’t back down when challenged. They feel that if they stand up for their right to disagree they will be accused of racism. They feel that if they just keep their mouth shut, no one will listen to them and no one will believe them. They believe they can force everyone to love them if they just get their way and everyone should follow their example.
This is an extremely dangerous idea. Dissenting opinions and ideas should not be silenced by those who only want to keep their opinion, and only want to control how others think. The louder someone calls everyone racists, the more they push everyone to believe that racism is the easiest thing in the world. This is why people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly get away with calling anyone who disagrees with them racists.
They control the conversation and make anyone that dares to voice an opinion against them become racist.
This is not the way to go if you want to be in control of the conversation. Instead of trying to argue your case, and letting the other person have their voice, try speaking from a position of absolute certainty. Say to yourself, “This person does not represent every person who reads this article, and therefore, they cannot possibly have the true, incorrect information that they are using to control the conversation.”
Then, when the person in question tries to talk, don’t interject. You will prove your point by what you do not say. The person you disagree with is not going to react like a dog that has been caught scenting the food that you have cooked. They will be angry, irritated, or annoyed. Don’t give them that time frame. Your only job on that is to make them stop their bad behavior as soon as possible.
Let’s say for example that a person, who is black, sees a black person, working in a store. They think to themselves, I should be working at Burger King because they are lazy. So, they complain loudly about how they are being discriminated against. The black person hears this and knows that this is not the way to go. They think to themselves, I should not have to work at Burger King because everyone knows I am better at it. So, they try to settle the matter in a nice way and tell the black person that they should have been working at Burger King all along. They then go on to talk to the manager about why they should get another job at Burger King.
This may seem like a simple issue between two people, but in actuality, it is not. The lazy black person did not back off because the manager heard their argument. The manager saw the black person’s calm approach and decided to intervene. Now the black person has been heard, but they need to resolve this issue. They can’t just keep talking over the manager and the staff until this is all resolved.
It is hard enough to actually resolve a serious issue between two people. This manager interjecting himself into the conversation is enough to push the two people further apart. This also creates a new problem for the manager. He now has a black person who is trying to work with him who is not happy with the way he is working with the black person. Can you imagine how that would play out with a white person? Would the manager get into a fight with the black people? Would he get kicked out or would they call security? Yes, they would. And that would make for an explosive, unfiltered, unfiltered news story about two white people fighting.
The manager needs to realize that the people he is dealing with are not people like him. They are not dumb enough to believe every story they are told, and they are not stupid enough to think that the manager is going to get mad at them for bothering him. The manager needs to deal with people the way he would want to be dealt with. The way I would want to be dealt with is the way I perceive to be dealt with. The way I perceive to be dealt with is the person who has crossed me and is now dealing with me. The people that I perceive to be dealing with me are not stupid, they know what they are doing and they know how to play the system. The people who play the system are not stupid, they just don’t have the time, or they don’t have the inclination, or they have invested their time and energy into playing the system games, that they may lose. The only thing they can lose is you and the relationship they once had with you.