Will evil prevail?
Black musician seeks a way to overcome racism, so he decides to join KKK meetings to understand the source of racism. In order to fulfill the plan he has arranged a meeting with the grand wizard of KKK group known for extreme violence. Had he succeed? Find out by watching the TED talk!
Questions:
1. Would
you find a courage in yourself to do what the main hero of the film did?
2. Did he
change your view of source of racism?
3. “How
can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”. Have you found yourself in a
situation, in which you asked yourself or other person/people similar question?
Comments
I don't think so. It was really brave of him, and I wouldn't be able to do something like this, knowing the odds how easy it would be to die there. I'm really surprised how this story has ended, because it was more on a positive note than I thought.
2. Did he change your view of source of racism?
This knowledge that we fear of something that we don't understand, was a well-known information for me, so it doesn't change a lot. We all know that respecting each other is important, but how can we respect someone, that wants to kill us because of their unfounded fear? It isn't only connected with racism, but also with homophobia, and similar mind-sets. It really triggers me, that there are people who spread rumours how bad are minorities, which makes everyone more hateful towards them, because they believe what they hear.
3. “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”. Have you found yourself in a situation, in which you asked yourself or other person/people similar question?
I haven't meet this kind of hateful people face-to-face, but I'm sure there is a lot of people in this country, who would hate me for just being myself. It really makes me sad, and I hope that we can change it one day.
Me neither, I wouldn't like to get hurt and the chances that I would influence something are next to nothing.
2. This story established my point of view abut source of racism. It seems very logic that hatred became in fear of unknown. I think, it also occurs in others social prejudices, like homophobia or xenophobia. I think Mr Davis explains it in a very plain way. With no aggression and anger. I like it.
3. I am white woman, living in Europe, and having no financial and health problems. I consider myself as a very privileged person. I have never been treated bad because of who I am. Maybe sometimes because of my gender. But I believe that others have biggest problems than I ever had.
Some time ago, when Black Lives Matter movement has started, I was looking for a source of legit knowledge about racism in US. I have rode a James Baldwins book, “Notes of a Native Son”. It was something what showed me, how racism in US is different than our Polish one. It is based on something, what we will not ever understand. I recommend this book from the bottom of my heart if someone is interested in the subject.
It is sad that you have been treated badly for your gender. I imagine that there are a lot of prejudice in engineering fields like computer science for woman.
I don't think I would. I have heard about this man before. He was one of the guests on Joe Rogan's Podcast and I have to admit that I was amazed by how intelligent and good person he is. How could anyone convince a fanatic to abandon his believes? It is a hard task by itself but the fact that a person who achieved that is also the one who was so hated by the fanatic is simply amazing.
2. Did he change your view of source of racism?
I knew that racism is born out of lack of knowledge but this man made it very clear. I always bring up his words when there is hate mentioned in the discussion. "Hate comes from fear. Fear comes from lack of knowledge. If you get to know something there is nothing to fear about. If there is nothing to fear then there is nothing to hate".
3. “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”. Have you found yourself in a situation, in which you asked yourself or other person/people similar question?
I am polish male in Poland so there is not much that I can say about the racism. I have, luckily, never had anything to do with it. I know that there might be people who don't like me, but I don't know about anyone who would hate me. I try to live my life the way that I don't give anyone a reason to hate me. Without a good reason at least. I don't know much about being hated but I think that such experience could open up my eyes a little bit on the subject.
"I knew that racism is born out of lack of knowledge". Yes, I fully agree with that statement. I wonder if we in our University we could create some kind of event to promote tolerance of other cultures.
Personally, I am still a bit flabberghasted by the origins of racism, chauvinism and more generally xenophobia. Humans are a social, cooperative species which has achieved great success from an evolutionary standpoint by working together, not apart. From an ecological point of view, cooperation seems to evolve convergently very frequently, essentially whenever possible. Cooperative behavior has evolved in spiders half a dozen times, each time independently. This seems to only collapse and cease in nature when there is a shortage of resources and the ecosystem can no longer support a population. And yet, here we are, at the height of our civilization's development, living in unprecedented comfort and opulence, and racism, a completely irrational collapse of natural human cooperative behavior, is seemingly the most widespread it's ever been. Surely one would think that the most optimal thing one could do for both own good and the good of the community (on which one's own good depends) would be to be as inclusive and cooperative as possible, not arbitrarily tribal and xenophobic. It might sound trite, but reality is that we do stand stronger together, as all of humanity. Racism is a completely irrational behavior and an abberation in human functioning which seems to propagate itself purely on memetics. It's being taught by a father to a son as "how things are" despite being objectively harmful nonsense. However, since it is propagated by artificial structures and constructed information cycles of human society, I do hope that it is not inherent in any way to humanity and can be defeated at large one day by addressing those underlying structures that perpetuate it.
I have asked myself this question a few times. I'm in a generally very privileged position in society, however there are aspects of my identity which would be seen very negatively by certain people for seemingly no reason at all, or for completely asinine reasons.
I think he was brave to do this but he also had a motivation because he wanted to know the cause of racist. so, for me, I don't think I would have the courage to do it but it all depends on why and how important it is for you to take that risk.
2. Did he change your view of source of racism?
I don't think I changed my view of the source of racism because I knew this even if I didn't watch this specific film but this film can help people who don't understand the source of racism to understand it better.
3. “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”. Have you found yourself in a situation, in which you asked yourself or other person/people similar question?
Yes, as a black guy living here in Europe. I've found myself asking this question many times but I come to realize that more often racists are just ignorant, insecure, or are just trying to protect their interest.