Exaggerating And Trivializing Racism

Exaggerating and trivializing racism are both inverse errors that dominate some communities.  On one hand, some people almost seem to hope they find racism so that they can oppose it, and perhaps they even believe or at least claim that almost anything at all is somehow racist when most aspects of life have no direct connection to one's skin color.  On the other hand, another set of people almost seem to hope that the status quo will remain the same no matter what that means for racial stereotypes.  While there is indeed still far, far more to the politics of any era besides racism and related issues, it has become increasingly fashionable for people other than rationalists to commit one kind of error or another with regard to racism.

It takes a great deal of stupidity to mistake things unrelated to someone's skin color as alleged indicators of racism or to be so zealous about correcting those who mistakenly identify things as racist that actual racism goes almost intentionally unnoticed or denied.  It is hardly a secret which major political faction is guilty of each type of error: liberals can be very likely to pretend like plenty of things are racist, potentially depending on your skin color (which is ironically racist), and conservatives can be very likely to dismiss all claims that racism still flourishes in some areas even while they harbor racist stereotypes themselves.  These two political parties, incorrect on most issues in their own ways both when it comes to core ideologies and the consistency of their adherents, make it very difficult for true racism to be identified by the masses.

One of the things that makes these errors even more damning--and yes, practically everything here is true of how sexism is handled beyond racism--is that those in both political factions talk as if they actually care, at least to some baseline extent, about racism.  In other words, they think these are valid stances to hold on racial discrimination.  If not valid in themselves, they act like these are valid stances in response to the idiocy of the other side.  What both overlook or are too unintelligent to grasp is that truths about racism are rooted in logical necessity rather than political hopes or reactions to factions with arbitrary ideas.  Truths about racism have nothing to do with what someone wants to be true so they can make someone else appear in negative light.

No one is epistemologically justified in making assumptions.  Thankfully, people who actually fucking try can reason out logical truths about racism and other issues without stooping to the madness of liberal and conservative ideas that are either outright false or insincerely held in order to just push back against someine else.  Most modern political stances reduce down to an arbitrary belief based on assumptions or a reaction to the other side--not that reactions are always problematic, but when the goal is just to choose the opposite of an asinine belief just for the sake of choosing the opposite, one is not looking to reason instead of personal delusions and random societal trends.  One must sometimes react to others in order to tailor refutations to their positions, but it is reason, not political trends, that needs to be at the forefront.