Brainwashed comments

Im gonna have a winge. Im sick of people making throw away automated responses to comments they make, through fear, or the need to imply they were not being rascist, intolerent, insensative ect...

I was talking to someone and the subject of music comes up, he says I dont like kelis really, or R&B, you know sort of black music

me: haha yeah i know what you mean.

Now it was a harmless comment, wasnt said to be offensive, it didnt mean anything, none of us made a deal out of it, it was also sort of a throw away comment, abit tounge in cheak not meant to be taken seriously.

He then (like I was expecting him too 2 seconds later, I instantly thought to myself 'listen to him say how hes not a rascist in a second') felt the need to go on about how hes not rascist. How he has lots of black friends, how he meant no disrispect by it, how theres nothing wrong with R&B, its just not his thing, how he gets along with black people, he works with them...ect it went on and on abit I just tuned out and groaned a he saidall these predictable things.

I felt like asking him to please not buy into the idea youhave to justifie everything you say on the off chance someone might get upity and take offence for no reason.

Im sick of it! All those stupid automated respnses that have been drummed into our heads. From this point on I vowe never to appologise for anything I say (unless on the off chance I do get angry and deliberatly say something just to be offensive)

Luckily I grew up in an era before the whole "politcal correctness" wave.
I don't raise my son with it either.

I am not ashamed of what I do and do not like and I agree that people are entirely too sensitive over many such things. It is chronically annoying.

Do you think that they were said from a point of validity at first, before it became automatic though?

I don't think I would have reacted the same way to your friend. I don't think I would have needed that kind of justification from someone but if they wanted to tell me they're not racist that would be fine

Despite that I do understand your reason for your reaction. I'm not suggesting that he's racist but that his response does seem "throwaway" because it shows a limited understanding of what racism actually is. Whichever ethnicity someone considers themself as, getting along with black people and having black friends doesn't mean that person will be as positive towards Asians, for example.

It's been long established that black music isn't just made by and for black people, nor should it deserve any less recognition than that of other music, especially since the foundation of the MOBO Awards partly for the purposes of expressing those messages.

I'm just using your example because it's a good one. I suppose some people may not have seen any difference between your friend and a member of the "I'm not racist, but..." brigade so I can understand why he would avoid any suggestion of pigeonholing people to ensure he doesn't get pigeonholed himself! although that's not how it should be.

I really only say "I hate this, but that's not to say that..." when what I'm saying may have a high chance of being mis-interpreted.

For example if someone says "What do you think of "Bridge over Troubled water"? and I respond with "I -ing hate it, it's a -ty song" I would probably follow that up with "But I love most of the rest of Simon and Garfunkel" because it would be easy to assume that because I hated a specific song, I would hate everything else they did.