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Millennials are the first generation to move left as they age (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 2 days ago by Deceptichum@quokk.au to c/world@quokk.au

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Millennials are bucking trends, becoming an increasingly progressive voting bloc and rewriting the long-held rules of politics, writes Isabella Higgins.

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[–] JillyB@beehaw.org 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

There's an old saying: "What do you call 10 people sitting at a table with 1 Nazi? 11 Nazis." By including a racist as your "best friend", you're quietly condoning and accepting his behavior. He won't change his views because of you. I waited way too long with my guy thinking I could fix him. He just learned to not bring up his views around me. Do yourself a favor and tell him to cut that shit out or you cant be as close.

If I met you and got along with you, I might consider us friends. If I later met your "best friend" and realized he had hateful views, I would see you in a completely different light and I wouldn't hang out again. After a while, all your friends will be racists or you're going to constantly be careful who you introduce your best friend to. You'll quietly hope your Chinese friend doesn't show up to the event so your best friend doesn't maybe make a weird comment. You'll start not hanging with people of color at the same time as your best friend. At that point, you'll be enabling racism. You'll be participating in the racism too. I'm saying this from experience. I did this until I realized what I was doing. Being friends with a hateful person is incompatible with my views. Their views are not "up for debate". They're completely unacceptable.

[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As I said: I don't see what good that would achieve.

I don't cut ties with friends because a stranger online calls me a nazi for hanging with them. When trying to change someone's mind, a good starting point would be to not insult them, make demands, or issue ultimatums. Perhaps your friend didn't change his mind for the simple reason that you weren't giving him any reason to.

[–] JillyB@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago

This defensive posture isn't warranted. I was commenting from a place of empathy since I was in a very similar situation and the cognitive dissonance and eventual hard talk I had to have was very difficult. If you truly feel that all life is equally valuable with no regard to race, then you are feeling some of this cognitive dissonance too. You won't know it, since that's the nature of cognitive dissonance, but it will be there. I wasn't calling you names or attempting to force anything on you. I was warning you about what your future looks like if you continue being good friends with a racist.

Perhaps your friend didn't change his mind for the simple reason that you weren't giving him any reason to.

A lack of social consequences is what gave him no reason to change his views. As long as his friends quietly ignored his crazy views, why should he feel the need to change. He might even feel those views are acceptable in regular society. We had plenty of "debates". All that did was make him feel hatred was a debatable stance. He ignored any good argument and burrowed more deeply into online spaces that accepted his hatred. I thought he was mellowing out after a COVID era phase. Turns out he learned to not to tell people irl about his views.

You can't fix him by being friends with him. I'm sorry. All that's going to do is make you more racist.