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Notes -
When did anti-racism become incorporated into a person's character after Civil Rights in the US? Talking to boomers, even liberal ones, it seems their attitude is mostly that personal prejudice is, while not encouraged, also not a big deal so long as you don't let it cloud your judgement in an official capacity (such as discriminating while hiring). Even many boomerlibs I know talk in racially disparaging terms about people they don't like (i.e. a black driver who cut them off). I'm around 30, and growing up in Houston with an ethnically diverse social group it seems that ideologically everyone was on board with equal opportunities, but if someone was personally racist it was more of a personal quirk than a major character flaw unless they were, like, in a criminal organization or something. I'm PMC, and grew up PMC going to public schools, so I may have been in a bubble.
To give a tongue in cheek quote from my dad, "When did being a racist become worse than being a serial killer?" It seems that there was a gap in between when everyone agreed the nation as a whole should act in a race-blind or even anti-racist way and when people decided that it's imperative that people as individuals abandon racist feelings/beliefs.
I'd also be interested in if/when this happened in other nations as well, such as the nations of Western Europe.
I remember listening to a podcast where two (older, white, liberal) hosts were talking about the movie, In Bruges, and they both discussed how the movie can be tough to watch these days because the protagonist, who is supposed to be likeable and sympathetic, says a bunch of racist, fatphobic, and retardphobic (?) things. And then one of the hosts had a moment of clarity and verbalized that the protagonist is also a literal hitman who murdered a child, which is substantially morally worse than making a joke about fat black women.
See also shows like The Blacklist and its main protagonist, Raymond Reddington. Described as an extremely ruthless individual with no qualms about killing or torture, Raymond ran a vast criminal empire that was surely responsible for untold suffering. Yet the viewer is meant to find him sympathetic because he rails against environmental destruction or white supremacists. He has the "correct opinions" on the "politically correct" side, so ultimately it's acceptable to root for him and be invested in his story.
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