Thread by @page88

I get the sense today that most Americans believe that all other Americans hate them.

Ever since the widespread disapproval of sex “out of wedlock,” I’ve never gone wrong assuming that most people think their crowd’s creeds and practices are right and mine and my crowd’s are misguided or even evil.

And vice-versa. Who cares? Why do so many people care if other people believe they’re racist or immoral or or ungodly or simply wrong?

Since @bungarsargon taught me everything this week, I learned that she believes my beliefs are not just wrong but “deplorable” & “immoral”!! And yet we are friends.

Worrying about what other people believe about your beliefs is:

A too meta
B braincell-busting
C a fool’s errand

Let’s say you’re someone who believes he’s not racist in the least, never had a racist thought, is (as Trump once said), “the least racist person you’ll ever meet in your life.” Good.

Then why get obsessed that other people disagree with your self-assessment?

Here’s my guess based on my own experience of having sex when some people considered it slutty:
1. when I worried I *was* slutty, I was VERY mad to be considered slutty by churchies
2. when I thought I was just fine, I didn’t care what the churchies thought about my sex life

So maybe some people are not so confident that they’re not racist, for example, when they’re furious that other people consider them racist.

I read an awesome memoir of being fat — title coming — with this mind-blowing line:

“I never ask if I look fat in an outfit, because I am fat, so technically I look fat in everything.”

amazon.com/Fat-Girls-Guid…

On the other hand, when people thought I drank too much, and told me so, I was furious at them. So I reflected. Then I saw they were right. Then I changed.

In summary, for those enraged that other people believe they are racist (say), consider:
1. Are they wrong? If so, who cares?
2. Are they maybe right? If so, reflect.
3. Are they right? If so, change.

PS @wendyshanker I hope I got your life-changing quotation right!

Oh no I’m tilting into too-long-thread territory, but there’s a lesson in this from the Scopes trial.

That episode is usually cast as provincial bigots who believe something superstitious about the origins of humankind v sophisticated scientists.

As if they were arguing about evolution.

But really the person who first raised the issue with the school board expressed ZERO thoughts about creationism or evolution or even race or the Bible.

He was ONLY concerned that kids were coming home from school thinking their parents, including him, were idiots.

Sound familiar? Same reason Tennessee again (and Brearley dad, etc) wants to ban CRT in schools! Because they fear it will turn their kids on them.

I don’t want my kids to think I’m an idiot either.

Same reason PTAs wanted to ban sex ed too.

Sad fact: No matter what, our kids are going to believe we are fully obsolete. Until later they feel sorry for us and consider us that dread old person word: “wise.” That’s the freaking way of it.

One kid’s therapist to me years ago: “So what’s your deepest fear here?”

Me: “That my kids will leave me.”

Therapist: “Your kids will leave you.”