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by _fq4v 1983 days ago
I am a brown man who has been subject to many racist attacks. After 9/11 my elementary school classmates called me a terrorist. My father and I (when I was a young boy) was chased out of a car dealership by a mad salesman yelling strawberry picker at us. Walking through the downtown of my city with my white wife, I have been harassed by people who don't like we are in an interracial marriage.

I still do not believe that racism or incidents of racism, including the ones I described above, are 'objectively' human rights issues. They are clearly quite subjective, since they only really exist in my experience. My religion (which most would also describe as subjective) tells me that these experiences have absolute moral character, but barring my reference to that, I cannot say for sure whether or not such discourse is objectively wrong.

I especially have trouble labeling the discourse as 'objectively' a human rights violation when none of the behavior I described above has come from anyone in any position to have power over my life or my rights.

Honestly, to continue to harp on those individuals that have mistreated me would be incredibly childish.

1 comments

Do you think your personal subjective experience with tolerating racism is therefore broadly applicable to other people's subjective experience with racism?

I'm probably misunderstanding but your post reads as "I don't call personal racist discrimination I faced hatred or racism, therefore my own personal discrimination of transgender people is not hatred or <ism>"...