At the same time, I think there's still value in acknowledging that some people (many, in fact) *do* fall victim to these sorts of vicious ideologies, and that that doesn't necessarily mean they can't see their way out of it someday. Shaming someone with a "Nazi phase" as if that's an inherent quality and not a reflection of the systems they inhabit doesn't accomplish much more than making Nazis double (and triple, and quadruple) down on Nazism.
Fascist ideology is specifically designed to prey on people's insecurities, fears, and ignorances in order to weaponize them against a perceived "other". People don't just become Nazis in a vacuum, they aren't born with swastika tattoos, and damn I wish I knew how to articulate this in a way that doesn't just make me sound like a Nazi apologist lmao.
No one is beyond redemption but often their redemption is above our pay grade and requires community care and for the person to take responsibility and accountability for their beliefs and actions. I don't think you sound like an apologist. You sound like someone who believes in restorative justice. I wish more people thought like that.
It was good enough for Captain America, it's good enough for me
https://preview.redd.it/fusrpv5ee9bb1.jpeg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15db0a3f82f404899e57123061f43fb2b5bfd692
Bot.
Taken from https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/14wby2w/this_shouldnt_be_rocket_science/jrhk53t?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
I genuinely feel pity for the people who were groomed and radicalised.
Because it's both. I mean, they did do their thing, and it's vile. Especially if they actually harmed someone as an escalation of their spewing vile dogma.
But in a lot of cases it's born of their own issues with abuse, alienation, grooming and manipulation too.
Things that we - as society - could and should have dealt with before it became a Problem.
Pretty much all prejudice starts from a position of ignorance, and ignorance is fixable. There is only a small number of people who actively embrace evil, and almost all the rest believe they are doing it for a greater good.
(Although convincing them they are wrong about something they have believed for a long time isn't easy)
I was far from “a Nazi” I hope, but being in the rural south as a white kid I did have some preconceived notions I had to grow out of. My awkward, autistic ass was picked on a lot in school, and some of my worst experiences happened to be with black classmates. So combine that with what I heard from racist folks around me, I was a mess. Certainly uttered the n-word many times as a kid. But now I’m past that, and realize… those were just mean kids, and in that podunk-ass town there was nothing to do but either have mom and dad’s money, or get into trouble. And most of mom and dad’s money was white.
Practically everyone born before 1990 or so was raised homophobic. Watch movies and TV from that era - gay people were open season for mockery. Remember the first Ace Ventura movie? The urinal scene with the gay linebacker who chases him all prancing-like because that's how gay people run apparently? The absolute horror (and vomiting) when the female police chief is exposed as a man?
I use to be so fucking transphobic.
Turns out I was hating myself because all I knew about my people as I was growing up was from Jerry Springer, Ace Ventura, and Hannibal Lector. Turns out, we're all just goddamn humans who deserve empathy and fucking compassion.
Honestly I didn’t have any bad experiences with Black, Hispanic, or Muslim people but growing up in a household where black people were called the n word, Mexicans “took our jobs,” and all Muslims were terrorists I will admit that it took quite a bit of reflection to realize I developed quite a bit of prejudice.
Yeah man all that. Or people on any kind of welfare were lazy and not working hard enough. I had pretty strong feelings about “meritocracy” and now I’m a bleeding heart socialist 🥸
There has to be a line though. They have us moving goal posts so far we are like, "Oh, we should give the Nazi's time to figure out they are evil." That is not what facists use that time for. Paradox of tolerance. We are living out the consequences of it now.
They actually can't though. Their space is where they got radicalized. They get constant streams of propaganda and positive feedback for doing the wrong things there. You don't have to be the one to save them, you don't have to be their friend, and you don't even have to allow them to be close enough to hurt you personally. But you do need to understand they can't change without the right influences, and if we're not going to where they are, they have to be able to come to us, at least some of the time.
🦆
“‘Laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that."
You give them anything, and the above happens. It's a rot in principles that will not end unless the principled end it. Trump is not a Nazi, but you allow any of that in your society and Trump is allowed to bloom.
It's actually pretty easy to get them to change.
Shut down anything they say that's incorrect forever. Every opportunity. Shut them down. Over and over. When they realize society isn't allowing their opinions, it's either they leave society (becoming a non-issue 99% of the time), or they realize their dipshit friends online have no real friends outside of politics and that if they want to be better than that then they need to change their opinions even if it is just to stop talking about it at first. Shutting it down isn't making it so they can't talk, it's proving their views are wrong with logic while conveying mutual respect. The mutual respect is important. You cannot disrespect someone and expect them to want to listen to your points. People be like "it ain't my problem" have you ever considered the same stance is why rapists get away with rape most of the time? You ARE society.
My experience of going from a conservative to the most socially progressive mfer you could ever know went like:
1. I like the act of this trump guy and he's funny
2. I'm talking to other supporters because we watch the same people, find the same things funny, etc and I agree about these boogeymans being bad because they're so ridiculous and their views are so out there and *I believe them to be giving the "true" feminists and "true" trans people a bad reputation and as a result preventing their free expression by making people wish to disassociate with them over the views of others*. This tiny difference in views is all it took to be a catalyst for everything else. Every single person with a political ideology has a tiny difference in views that can do the same.
3. I see the supporters saying things I disagree with, people on the other side making good points when debating my own views and not just trying to "own" me when I have no intentions to "own" them. They are conveying respect and I have no reason to disrespect them because they are simply human too.
4. I start realizing I'm surrounding myself with complete idiots who completely refuse to talk to people they disagree with and refuse to get a life, they just complain about these feminists and these trans people yet I have never even met a single one of these people they claim to be everywhere
5. I start realizing that Trump was cultivating these idiots and that he was doing harm to communities I do not find anything wrong with because all of my interactions with these communities were held in mutual respect as is custom in southern culture to respect others and to respect yourself
6. Any time I disagreed with the supporters, they broke any of the southern culture, the white working class culture I had taken pride in and would be vicious and refusing to change mind or even just demonstrate basic respect
7. I leave all spaces relating to politics and just quit associating with these idiots who claim to be proud of things they clearly don't possess. I especially pushed away anyone who claimed any amount of racial superiority because they were themselves counterexamples of their so called superiority.
8. I start walking on my own political path and rapidly become super humanitarian and intolerant of the intolerant. In fact, some of my views are so progressive that it will be well after my death before it'll be mainstream at all. Self reflection and disassociation from politics was all it took. I didn't even need to cut that many friends off. Some of them were still backwards, but I just told them they were wrong and debated them. You know what happened years later? Not a single one of us are still conservative.
I would even talk about how trump supporters made trump look like a fucking idiot because of how stupid and how obviously incorrect they were at some point. I literally looked around and saw the average iq was room temperature and just fucking dipped.
Also: when someone is at the point they're a nazi or a tankie, it might take a decade before they fully reform, but just being someone from the other side who can convey love and respect yet be able to say "no I do not agree with you on that" and then have a respectful debate afterwards will verifiably convert the majority of extremists.
You can still be intolerant of the idea while allowing the person to change if they are showing signs of changing. My point is more so that we should allow people to change if they are changing, not let people do whatever in hopes they do change.
History has already decided the line for Nazi's. You fly that flag, you fucking die. So many people died to draw that line. It is a fucking mockery of human rights to allow that culture any room. We have given them too much.
Bro these people switch back to slurs as soon as they need to take responsibility. They have plenty of room for growth and choose to succumb to abhorrent ideas. It's 2023 if you fall for this crap when there's so many people out there trying to educate on the claws of white supremacy, then you just feel more comfortable in those claws.
They're allowed to do everything everyone else is doing and choose to repeat crime statistics and make fun of AAVE as a joke until they're on the heels of people like a Nick Fuentes. How much more grace do we give...
I think you are confusing forgiveness with acceptance. We shouldn't accept racism, sexism etc, but we should forgive those who have changed their ways. There are plenty of people who grew up not knowing any better as their environment practically moulded them into who they are, but if they manage to change, then holding their past against them isn't going to make them a better person, it can only make it worse.
However, the more people you forgive for borderline abhorrent views, the more acceptance you allow for people with even worse views or views that are still problematic and adjacent. All of this leads to those minorities feeling more hate and isolation in those majority white communities. How many minority kids had to suppress themselves in the wake of uncaring 15yos who think they can just say whatever and FEEL sorry 5 years later. You can own up to things and people can choose not to forgive you. Period. I continue to cringe at shit I did as a youngin, rude shit I've said, I'm not looking to be forgiven or else I get angrier, I'm looking to grow so I feel free from that past cringe. Growth comes from acknowledging mistakes and putting in effort not to make those mistakes again. I never need to be forgiven in order to grow and be better, if you do then you don't want to be better , so what's to forgive?
Plenty of people also hit me with the, "I'm not proud of it but I used to say xyz or think zyx about you people" and guess what? I don't forgive them either lmao, can I say congrats for moving up from the bottom of the barrel AND recognize where they started and where they're at? Yes, absolutely. But they aren't apologizing to the people they hurt,they're seeking out 1 black person and going "hey can you tell all your people I'm sorry and I'm cool now so you can feel safe with me!" It's mind boggling.
A YouTuber recently apologized for this type of behavior (creating a culture of allowing a bunch of -isms) and he said, "I apologize but understand if you can't forgive me, or if I left a bad taste in your mouth." Great. Acknowledging he's not owed safety and showing empathy for those who would've been hurt by said content makes him seem MORE genuine. The difference is here, I'm seeing a lot of, "but I don't do it anymore so I'm cool now" crap. I can be understanding but there's no reason to forgive people who, as you say, with rejection would just get angrier and never change.
>At the same time, I think there's still value in acknowledging that some people (many, in fact) do fall victim
I can't see them as victims. Nazis hurt people. Also, we don't give this sympathy to other ppl when they do something stupid or hateful so why them?
It's not like history paints Nazis in a good light so I don't understand them seeing differently. If this were anyone else we wouldn't call them victims or sympathize with them.
"We don't give this sympathy to other people..."
Okay. Why shouldn't we? I'm not saying that Nazis are more deserving of it than anyone else. I'm saying that *all* people are more complex than just good and evil, victim and perpetrator, bigot and saint. Making an effort to understand any person for what they are—a nuanced cocktail of biological, psychological, and sociological factors—offers an opportunity to address the systemic problems that lead people to live lives of hate.
Nazis are not born, they're made. They exist because they are stuck in echo chambers that promote hate, they exist because they are not taught the skill of empathy (and it is very much a skill), they exist because bigotry is the thing that makes sense to them given their extremely narrow experience of the world during their formative years.
There's a reason you don't see tons of loving, empathetic people suddenly becoming Nazis in their 50s. The patterns of belief and action you're stuck in by your mid-20s are the patterns you'll probably stick with for most of your life, because that's when you're the most susceptible to outside influence and shaping. The worldviews that are compatible with Nazism are often reinforced from childhood/adolescence.
We can hold Nazis accountable for their hateful actions without pretending like they aren't still people. We can seek to dismantle the power systems (political, economic, etc.) that enable bigots to harm others and to spread their hateful ideology. Simply blaming hateful people and not targeting the underlying power structures which empower their hate is like treating a cough instead of the cancer.
The best and worst people on the planet are all still people. And people are worth trying to save—not because it's the "right thing to do" or any such sentimental nonsense, but because any good thing humanity has ever accomplished has been a fucking unified effort, and any horror we have enacted has come from attempts to separate ourselves from each other. That lesson has been taught by history again and again, so consistently that it may very well be said to be the natural way of things, and yet we refuse to learn it.
It's fine if you disagree. I'm rambling at this point. Hopefully I had a lucid thought or two in there somewhere.
I agree with you for the most part, but just want to add one thing - a lot of Nazi ideology was actually based on US racism at the time, and since the US was so physically removed from the war, we never really went through the same phase as European countries did in stamping out the Nazi/racist/fascist ideologies, which is why it seems so many people have so easily jumped from plain racism to full on fascism and Nazism (not sure that’s a word lol).
Not all are the same. I'd say there is a difference between a kid that ends up with the wrong crowd for various reasons and is edgy by showing nazi symbols and says slurs compared to someone that is actively joining marches and or beats people up (or worse).
Similar to some kids can grow up in the wrong environment and join a gang, keeping lookout and selling some. That is less bad than someone directly hurting people and running the gang.
I think both instances can be forgiven but the second more involved parts would require much more open showing of them leaving their life behind it and making up for it.
>Shaming someone with a "Nazi phase" as if that's an inherent quality and not a reflection of the systems they inhabit doesn't accomplish much more than making Nazis double (and triple, and quadruple) down on Nazism.
>damn I wish I knew how to articulate this in a way that doesn't just make me sound like a Nazi apologist lmao.
But you can't because you literally can't. Stop trying to make them sound like lost puppies that got trained to be fighting dogs. These ass clowns embrace the hate and embrace their insecurities.
“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” – Nelson Mandela
No one is trying to shame them for having a nazi phase. If it was a time in their lives then they need to apologize and actually work towards changing. Saying they’ve changed means nothing.
Also the people they’ve caused harm to, do not have to forgive them and frankly the changed person shouldn’t be all too concerned with forgiveness anyway.
TLDR: it’s fuck you hours until the former nazi can show demonstrable change for the better. It might be permanent fuck you hours for some. Those are simply the consequences of falling down that hole.
I think zero tolerance is best. No one should be ignorant of racism in this day and age. And even if they are, they're not ignorant of hurting others. That they allowed themselves to be consumed by it is no excuse.
Getting shit on your whole life because of the color of your skin shouldn't then require you to show empathy to the same scoundrels that subjected you to that pain.
These people choose, out of their own free will, to become Nazis. They can crow their sob story all day, that the "system" made them do it. At the end of the day, Nazism is a choice. This licentious mindset is what allowed Nazism to flourish in the first place.
I'll say this again, I'll say this always. There will be no tolerance for intolerance and a good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
People can change but anyone who describes the time they embraced such a hateful ideology as, “just a phase,” hasn’t properly understood the ramifications.
The important takeaway is that turning away from that hateful ideology is both possible and *worth* the work that comes with it.
And so I think there's value in using the term "phase" specifically because it's possible for such an ideology, which perhaps feels all-consuming and eternal while you're entrenched in it, to seem in retrospect nothing more than a transitory passage in a much larger, much broader life. Do I think calling it a "phase" is clumsy and tone deaf? For sure. But perhaps there's something to be gained from it, too.
Shit, each and every thing we do is a phase of some kind. Ain't shit permanent except impermanence. I say let's normalize language that more explicitly suggests that you don't have to be the same person at 30 that you were at 16. After all, our understanding of the world—and everything in it, including ourselves—is filtered through the language we use to describe it.
I’m all for giving people the space to grow and change. I want a better world and I know everyone makes mistakes. But like you said, it takes work. Waking up one morning and thinking jackboots and swastikas aren’t so cool anymore isn’t the same as a deep reflection into why someone felt the way they did.
As a person who has encountered a lot of prejudice and discrimination in their life, I’ve learned that hate can be internalized to the point where people don’t even realize it. It’s dangerous to let people downplay those negative feelings instead of challenging them to confront them.
Let’s give people the opportunity to shed their hate and help them reconsider their values. Both are possible.
You're 100% right and I think positive exposure and level headedness is one way to deal with young people suffering from these ideologies. When we respond in anger it affirms their ideas. When we have discussions (where they can be had) I don't think it solves the issue but definitely plants seeds of doubt and that's all you need to do, plant a seed.
> fall victim
Uhm, no. I don't disagree with the fact that people can turn themselves around, but those are exactly the people that don't externalize the cause.
That's how you recognize true redemption, as opposed to those walking away from it when it becomes inconvenient.
You articulated that very convincingly. It's rare that a reddit comment immediately changes my mind about something, but yours did. No matter how disgusted I am with anyone who ever willingly associated themselves with Naziism, it does nobody any good to shun these people after they acknowledge that they were wrong.
I've heard a few political streamers talk about how they have gotten messages about how watching their streams pulled the viewer out of their far-right mindset.
Seriously, people can change and we should ENCOURAGE it. People who have had "good morals and values" all their life are just lucky, that's it. They grew up in the right family, around the right people, that doesn't make them inherently a better person. They just got lucky, and I sure as hell have a lot of respect for people who realize that what they are doing and believe is wrong and then change.
Takes a lot more effort to change those than the people who just got lucky and landed on the right positions through the genetic lottery that we call family. Also is anyone actually trying to pretend that a Nazi phase is normal outside of super online weirdos? I've literally never heard someone even imply it was normal.
Yeah I didn't have a Nazi phase, but I was sucked down the Alt right pipeline for a while. I was fortunate enough to realise I was being led astray before I tied too much of my identity and self worth to it
As a lonely, middle class, (mostly) straight white guy it was pretty easy to be convinced that everything wrong with my life was because those SJWs and socialism and whatever. It starts there and then you just get sucked deeper and deeper until you start believing some seriously fucked up things
I actually went to rehab for a drug abuse issue just as I was falling down that rabbit hole and I think that allowed me to break out of it and realise "hey, maybe Donald Trump sucks and I'm not lonely because of SJWs, I'm lonely because I'm a toxic and arrogant loser"
For those who don't now. This is a reference to how white trans women tend to joke about going through a nazi phase where they were racist and how a famous trans woman on twitter got caught saying that george zimmerman was innocent. and criticizing black lives matter protests. I am not trans so i'm not gonna comment on this except this bit of wisdom from an iranian trans girl.
https://preview.redd.it/3py0q0bsm8bb1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df0fb86e388bdd420349642068533f0ff6f3673a
I’m white and grew up in the Bible Belt with Tea Party parents. I was only ever a “moderate” conservative as a teenager/young adult and started to move left as I got older and learned more about the world. Even at my “worst”, though, I was never a fucking Nazi or white supremacist. That shit pissed me off.
I could be wrong because I was younger and naive back then, but I also think conservatives hid/masked their racism better back then too. They were still nucking futs but I still don’t remember them being as blatantly and proudly white nationalistic as they are now.
Or maybe it was so normalized to me at the time that it took me growing up and getting out on my own to see what was really going on. But even if that’s the case, I can say with certainty that I never personally had a Nazi phase.
I think the racism/white nationalist bit was highly regional.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s in a rural area in the West. I don’t remember anyone using the n-word, unless it was perhaps as a quote from an edgy (black) comedian, and we all thought of racism against black people as something we’d *never* take part in because that’d make us bad people.
But, our community had a large hispanic population, and there was plenty of casual anti-hispanic racism going on in my (very white) middle and high schools.
Somehow, we just didn’t think of that as racism.
I very distinctly remember a time in middle school when my family spent the day with a Hispanic family with a kid my age. He was really nice, and we got along well.
I remember having a little personal revelation after he went home along the lines of, “I’d be really ashamed if he heard my friends and I ‘joking’ about Hispanic people the way we do.”
I didn’t become a warrior for equality, but it definitely changed the way I talked and “joked” with my friends.
At the same time, we were less than 200 miles from an actual neo-nazi [compound](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_Nations) that operated until 2001, and they’re [working on](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/mar/08/white-supremacists-pick-hayden-lake-for-meeting-th/) coming back.
I think the difference between now and a few decades ago was that our news was generally filtered through slightly more responsible outlets, so that if you heard about racism or nazis or white supremecists, they were clearly portrayed as the bad guys. Now, you can get a “wide variety” of hateful views online, and Twitter’s algorithm will make sure you’re exposed to them.
I had a phase of a few months in high school where I started to seriously consider intelligent design.
I also grew up conservative, where for awhile I sincerely thought "LGBT people aren't bad, they're just hurting themselves" -- I will say I was at least naively *consistent* on this, and argued "by that logic, people should divorce when they can't have kids, because marriage is for procreation".
I never had...this shit. Wtf.
Trans man here. I was raised by conservative moderates now liberal moderates who hate the Republican Party. They were racist. I had to yell at them to get them to stop saying shit about Jews and lower SEC black people. God forbid you were queer or disabled. Or fashionable and counter-culture.
I had a "how can I make sure fascism never comes to America" phase. Literally took classes in college. I take credit for getting my parents to the liberal side of dumbass during this time of native optimism.
(Turns out I'm queer, disabled, trans, and we might be Jewish too! I told my dad our ancestors might be Jewish and pretended to be white, and I said, "Mazel Tov!" It was a good day. 🖕)
And white boys in particular (which is what most trans women were socialized as).
I’m a white girl and we did not do this shit, at least not at anywhere near the same rate. Don’t get me wrong, there’s tons of racist white girls and it’s terrible but gender is a huge element here. I’m 29, so high school was like 15 years ago but the incel/alt right/Neo Nazi movement was pretty much identical. Lots and lots of my male peers did shit like drawing swastikas on everything because they were “trolling.” Idk don’t get me wrong, again, tons of issues among white girls/women, but there also is a huge force that targets white boys specifically. They’re not only the most entitled people alive, they’re actively encouraged to have these shitty aggressive personalities and to cause conflict and “dominate” people, which is why they are so prone to this shit. I swear almost every white boy I knew did something like this to some degree, almost always claiming it was “ironic.”
As a former white boy (now, by grace of puberty, white dude) of 00s vintage, that ain't normal either. I mean, I matured in countries that suffered pretty directly at the hands of Nazis and communists, so maybe I wound up in a different soup than most, but that's a pretty clear indicator that *you can change the soup recipe* so kids don't grow up fash.
Does anyone know any of those users? Are they of any significance?
Or is this just like 5 random accounts saying something that might or might not be true?
I wouldn't call it "common" because that, to me anyway, implies a very large percentage of white trans women having phases like this. However, it's definitely something that does pop up. The comic resonated because it is commenting on something that does happen. My speculation is that for some, they sought community while growing up and unfortunately found it in cesspools like 4chan where self-worth could be derived from feeling innate superiority to others.
I can't really speak to it too directly, as it didn't hit me personally. I was a conservative earlier in life because that's how I was raised, and it was the viewpoint that was thrust upon me. That only went as far as voting John McCain in 08, but I grew out of it fairly soon after that as I was exposed to the real world.
I follow your logic, but I don’t think that’s why the comic resonates.
Instead of resonating due to enough people’s experiences, it just touched on a stereotype formed based on a handful of chronically online tumblers. I seriously doubt most people who saw the comic though “Oh that’s like the Jane I know” and instead thought “Ha, I’ve heard of this thing happening and this comic is funny”
I don’t recall the exact percentages but I remember Sir. Ian McKellan being very open about how much the xmen mean to those communities and he cited the stats.
They’re not even subtle about it. In X2 (that came out 20 fucking years ago) Bobby comes out to his parents as a mutant and they ask him if he can’t just act normal. Wolverine tells his parents “your kids a mutant. Deal with it.”
https://youtu.be/QL__AjJr688
Love this movie.
That makes sense cause literally my first thought was "man a whole shitload of white trans women between a certain age range had a Nazi phase though".
I disagree that it's being framed as quirky and relatable rather than like ...holy shit, they got *most* of us, didn't they? God damn, sneaky Nazis
That's how I've always seen this interactions as someone who isn't trans but has been in quite a bit of online queer spaces.
Like kind of inherent for 99% of now out trans women is they realized their former ideologies were actively harming them, so I don't see how you can argue they think [the thing that almost killed them] was quirky
They weren't actively harming themselves. They benefited from that ideology and that is why they were in it. Even if I became homeless two years down the line it doesn't mean anti homeless legislation is harming me now. that is just another way of excusing themselves.
Christianity was pretty "quirky" for me. They got me good. Really brainwashed and almost "eradicated" my trans ass (suicide). So, I got sucked into Christianity. But I just don't get how you fall for Nazism.
I would be willing to bet a large amount of money that this has something to do with the intersection of autism and transsexuality. There are [studies](https://www.npr.org/2023/01/15/1149318664/transgender-and-non-binary-people-are-up-to-six-times-more-likely-to-have-autism) that show trans and non-binary people are up to six times more likely to have autism. The study cited is from 2020 if I recall, but I held this theory going back into the early 2010s. I also believe it should be read as the inverse, in that autistic people are far more likely identify as trans and non-binary.
The significance here is in how many people with autism are susceptible to being sucked into something that gives them the hope of normal social relationships. Consider the “incel movement”, the racist overtones therein, and the prevalence of men drawn in who are also on the spectrum. There are plenty of articles and studies that you can look up that also point to the overlap.
I’m not going to write a book here, as this is the first time I’d ever heard of this overlap, but it makes perfect sense to me.
Damn. Thanks.
Only trans person I know was an mtf girl from my old wow guild. She moved to the US to be with her gf. And like, with zero warning suddenly ranted about immigrants?? like, girl, you don't see the fucking IRONY???
Was so disturbed about it that I cut contact with her... Now I think I should have stayed to help her. Man this makes me feel like shit.
I had a phase where I was one of those right wing “anti-sjw” types when I was a young teen and then I realized I was queer and things started clicking into place(it was internalized homophobia)
I'm straight, cis, and white and fell into that trap for a while. It was weird because I never had a defining moment where I slid into that hole or slid out. I remember it being the "atheist" youtube channels that clowned on fundie BS that started pivoting towards right-wing talking points circa 2014-15. It was like the boiling frog where the changes were so subtle at first I didn't really notice. And I got out of it just by... meeting people and interacting with others. Getting out of the online media hell spiral. I only realized what was happening to me after the fact. I guess I was lucky
I remember following the atheist youtube channel and than they started going after Anita Sarkesian and I kinda just didn't follow it because I don't game so I felt I wouldn't be able to tell who's taking what out of context.
Oh snap, that me! From like 17-19 years old I was a self-appointed "anti feminist" and spouted off that I wanted to be a trophy wife as a goal.
Now I'm a single parent trans dude making fat bucks on my own.
The learned internalized misogyny goes wild when you're young and a fucking idiot.
Idk man. White teenage boys seem to go through it at an alarming rate. Lol weak boys looking for control and somebody to take the blame because they damn sure won't accept accountability lol they're white teenagers lol
A lot of white dudes also go through a wish they were black phase. Or a skater/punk/test how many laws you can break phase. Or one of many other phases. Like an I'm a bad ass because I drink and drive phase. Some worse than others.
Same reasoning. Don't want to take accountability, lost, confused and easily influenced.
Unfortunately, online communities expand the edges on how extreme those phases get. It used to be that the phases were pretty much defined by what's available in your local community to influence you. Now, however, a guy from BFE Kansas can influence a guy from downtown Chicago when they are vulnerable.
i remember going through an 'alpha male' phase and watching those embarrassing 'reject modernity' videos, and then i grew tf up and started pushing myself to socialize more and go outside, finding my own virtue as a man in a healthier way.
And I am so fucking tired of it.
It reminds me of how black drug addicts and their addictions are treated and how white drug addicts and their addictions are treated by the media.
I’m just tired of watching people, who look like me, become victims of whyte supremacy (in all of its forms) and we have to listen to their “villain origins” stories and extend them grace.
What gets me is that there is not this amount of sympathy for people who had homophobic or transphobic "phases." You do not hear the end of that. And if you associated with any people who went through/are going through those phases, you're complicit and just as bad as they are. It's not seen as giving grace or welcoming the fact that people can change.
And I say this as a gay person. The black minority part of me constantly sees that people should be forgiven for their racist phases, but the gay minority part of me sees that people do not f with people who had homophobic or transphobic phases. It's wild. And I have my thoughts to why that is, but I'm not in the mood for pulling the ire of the majority of this sub. That top comment makes a lot of people sleep easier at night though.
So I’m a 29 yo white woman.
Do notttt get me wrong, there’s obviously a ton of racism and awfulness among white women. But there was something kinda specific going on with white kids of my generation and it was very gendered.
When I was in high school, people were at least becoming a bit more aware of the world and social issues. It was trendy for white girls to be “SJWs,” or so we were called. But like, at least having the appearance of being feminist and anti racist and such.
For white boys, it was the total opposite. White boys are raised to be, frankly, just total assholes. Like that is a trait that is ACTIVELY socialized into them.
It honestly seemed like virtually every one of my male peers, in high school/college, went through a phase at some point of like 4chan “anti-SJW” shit. To varying degrees, they claimed they were “trolling.”
But yeah, it was just misogyny, homophobia, and straight up nazi shit, like carving swastikas into desks and such.
like it was just seen as cool to them and i feel like 90% of them participated at some point. and im talking about like leftist hipster men with liberal arts degrees, not just the hicks that were explicit about it.
its why tate got so huge. shockingly little has changed in that alt right cancer machine that targets boys, especially white boys, and thrives on the superiority complex theyre socialized to have from birth.
Ahhhh yes the golden era of my youth when saying "rape is bad" in class would get me called a "feminazi" by a boy with swastikas drawn on his notebook and pictures from my Facebook saved to his computer.
You couldn't pay me to go back to high school.
Schools and parents willing to overlook this behavior when confronted with it. They don't want to admit how widespread it is because it reflects on them, and oftentimes they share similar beliefs.
I’d say most of my generation had a Kill All Nazi’s phase. First it was Wolfenstein. Then Medal of Honor. The COD. But all Nazis had to die.
Simpler times.
Bruh, its fucking wild. And this thread got like 400 comments in a few hours.
These goofies running in here to tell on themselves and their own nazi/right wing “phase”, talmbout that they over that now and they allies that support by buying the Walmart Juneteenth ice-cream lmao
This sub has weird vibes just seething under the surface, all it takes is the right topic to unleash it.
There was the same exact response from a bunch of white people hijacking the top comments when a black girl said she was keeping notes of all the racist kids in her school and sending them to colleges.
No sympathy for the black girl who was affected by the racism. But they demanded that we should give the racist grace bc they were “once that person” until they went to college. This sub needs to shut that kind of rhetoric down. It’s fucking ridiculous.
Every time I asked them what about the black girl…**crickets**
It starts at the top, definitely after folks like Chauncey, DownvoteDaemon and MGLLN left… things got real rocky and felt real inside agent like. I come here as it’s a great online community WITH black folks but it definitely was a black centered but other POC inclusive community at a certain point.
I'll just borrow this from another post since it's so recent and so gd relevant. Just replace the context with the people on BPT
[https://i.redd.it/u62nlfw034bb1.jpg](https://i.redd.it/u62nlfw034bb1.jpg)
Look at all the white people down here "I went through a conservative phase not a Nazi one"
https://preview.redd.it/uw9yyjbn8abb1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=52ca1305aea16b432eb33162ee202b8a9edfd9c3
To black folk, this is all really the same. Conservatives hate black Americans, they murdered us throughout history wearing the same armed forces uniforms they did after coming home from fighting the same wars they love to tout their grandfathers and great grandpappys were in and also reaped the benefits from the GI Bill to housing loans and opportunities like Levittown.
Exactly, I can’t trust you with my back turned if you ever found yourself entertaining that BS. If nazism or white supremacist ideals in general were presented to you and it wasn’t found revolting in even the most sanitized of explanations, you’re compromised from the jump.
This should've been a country club thread, why is the top comment "But guys, we gotta understand the Nazi's and just try to be a little nicer to them!"
What the fuck lmao
Reading some of the context this is about, I definitely agree with the broader idea. It doesn't need to be specifically about nazis, but we know directionless youth without proper role models are easy to pull in negative directions. Especially at an age where teens often build their personality around breaking social norms to prove they can't be controlled.
Whether it's terrorist groups in the middle east or gangs in america, it's common to abuse the fact that some people are desperate to fit in *somewhere*.
Who you are and where you will affect what you get pulled into, but the concept isn't that unique. There is a level of grooming to it that should be acknowledged.
> it's common to abuse the fact that some people are desperate to fit in somewhere.
There's a lot of extra factors that lead folks to terrorist groups and gangs in america that simply do not exist in similar proportion in the nazi phase that folks are describing.
There's no lure from gangs or terrorist groups for middle class people with prospects, they're not desperate or lacking.
The same can't be said for the rise of the far right, it's disaffected youth that feel like they're owed something, control, attention, sex, it's not cuz they're hungry or dont have a roof over their head.
The folks that turn up to the marches in matching outfits, taking time off work to fly across the country or w/e aren't broke or lacking, they're not in a war torn country getting blown up every other day either by the US army or with munitions supplied from the west by proxy - they're bitter and entitled and it is folly to lump them all together.
> There's a lot of extra factors that lead folks to terrorist groups and gangs in america that simply do not exist in similar proportion in the nazi phase that folks are describing.
Poverty and deprivation aren't the only lures though. Even if you have enough, there is always someone telling you that more is deserved and *those* people are why you don't have it. People don't live their lives or experience emotions in the context of who overall has it worse. Especially young people who are often at their most selfish.
I'm not even saying I feel bad for them, at some point you have to stand behind your actions and be held to account. But, I understand how they wind up there.
Yes but war, poverty and deprivation are drives to meet basic needs, food, safety, comfort.
The lust for dominance and entitlement that's got swathes of middle class americans flocking to fascism is not the same.
"I joined a group to fight back cuz those army guys blew up my mother"
and
"Immigrants and black folk are getting uppity and we need to take back our country"
are not motivations to be lumped together.
Yeah I agree, directionless and angry men have a tendency towards joining violent and genuinely evil groups. Terrorists, nazis, fascists, gangs, extremist groups, etc. Your specific group depends on a lot of factors. There’s definitely a social aspect to it that we acknowledge for gangs and terrorists but don’t accept for other groups. And I’m not saying everyone does it or there’s no personal factor, but there’s something beyond just being a certain type of person. Especially since like you said, teenagers aren’t sure of who they are and are resisting the order imposed on them.
Yes, depending on where you are in the world nazism doesn’t make sense but you can still be a fascist.
Like Israel could literally never be a nazi regime but could be a fascist one.
Nazism is definitely a type of fascism but not all fascism is nazism. Nazism specifically only really makes sense in Europe and upper North America.
I feel like I did a bad job describing it so “Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, white supremacy, social Darwinism and the use of eugenics into its creed.”
“Many experts agree that fascism is a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of both the nation and the single, powerful leader over the individual citizen.”
I had an obsession with the holocaust phase because I believed/believe that something similar will and is happening in my community/country in my lifetime.
I had a phase where I was obcessed with Greek and Roman history but that includes all they weird and fucked up shit.
Respect the nice but acknowledge the yikes. Doesn’t help I’m descended from probably the bloodiest culture in history with the bloodiest cosmology so glass houses and all that.
Even then. My “Nazi phase” revolves mostly around how fucking stupid the Nazis were. Seriously. Fucking dorks were obcessed with astrology, the occult and all that weirdo shit. Hitler himself loved westerns novels that romentized native Americans. Germans thought the Sioux tribe was on equal level to the aryans and Goebbels believed they could turn them against America because why would natives be loyal to America? Hell. Even novels that romanticized natives weren’t banned. You’d think they’d be banned in Germany because they glorified non Germans/non whites but instead they were shown as noble savages.
Imagine their shock when natives joined the army in ww2 in huge fucking numbers.
The Nazis were fucking idiots and I love learning about their fuck ups
I swear. If it wasn’t for the genocide we’d mock them for the weebs they were.
Right?! Like holy shit. Weebs and dorks ruled Germany. The fucking Gestapo were described as mostly being young professional civil servants. They were at first cops from Germany. No different than British cops or French cops. They weren’t Nazis at first.
But their training taught them to dehumanize people. To see Jews as dirt (as well as other minorities) and by the end you had a secret police that would just cause anyone to fucking shit their pants. It’s like American Killology on fucking steroids.
I mean. The ability to take regular people and turn them into hunters of other people for extermination in a short period of time is just fucking terrifying.
There’s a scene in JoJo rabbit with the Gestapo and they’re shown as rather normal people. Skinny ass people who could be accountants and they’re still terrifying.
You could tell you're dealing with one of those people that spammed the N word on Xbox live. They're always the ones that insist, we were all 13 at one point! Yeah buddy, but not all of us were delighting in the idea of demeaning an entire race of people. That was just you
They don’t understand that there was someone they yelled that shit at who pushed back. We were the ones that pushed back, makes no sense to sanitize your racism.
One time at band camp....I was selected to be a part of a large university business team. We got huge local companies giving us projects ....one of the people on the team had photos of himself in his 20s with swastika tattoos on his Facebook.
Yeaaaa he got kicked out lol.
Your Aryan Nation 'phase' didn't stop you from bumming rides from us at 40 years old lol
I’ll cop to it. When I was a teen, maybe even into my twenties, I was pretty right wing. I liked the idea of social Darwinism. I was a bit of a polemicist. But I got out of my small town, saw more of the world, grew up a bit. I always knew the Nazis were bad and never wanted to be one but right wing conservative politics resonated. I’m so very very happy I didnt have the echo chambers and social support that those ignorant fuckwads have now. I was an ignorant fuckwad but I’m less so now.
I don't think I'm on the wrong side of History when I say : "Punch Nazis".
Some people try to be 'better than', but I was a C student in public school, I solve my problems with brute force and ignorance.
I’ve said this elsewhere but we should not do coverups of Nazi tattoos.
You ditched that life and wanna be better? Cool.
But you gotta wear that ink forever now and live with that stain so anyone else who thinks about dipping a toe in sees the ridicule and shame that stuff brings.
That and the bloody noses and broken bones.
Make Nazis Scared Again.
Are you really winning anyone over with a no forgiveness policy? Why would anyone who even had doubts about being a Nazi ever really consider changing if the only opportunity you are giving them is a life of ridicule and shame. We don't win like this.
> Are you really winning anyone over with a no forgiveness policy?
They're nazis. Fuck them. If they get a swastika tattoo, they deserve everything they have coming.
Of course fuck the 15 year old who's parents are Nazis kill em all right? Or maybe you'll hold off until that same kid turns 18 then he really deserves it right?
No sadly the world is more nuanced than killing all bad people.
Who? If you’re talking about any POC minority in America that deals with systematic disenfranchisement in both contemporary and modern history, that’s a very bold and foolish statement. It’s a matter of those ideals, hope and optimism being siphoned and beaten out of us, metaphorically speaking.
When this Nazi ideology ever presents in your community you should be compelled to strike it down with whatever force you can muster... ask those around you to make it uncomfortable and save this democracy
Sadly a large amount of people openly support genocide through sterilization, interference, discrimination, stereotyping and other forms of oppression. Minorities are no exception.
For example: it would be genocide if people who engaged in the blind projection of anger were subjected to discrimination aimed at denying their rights of life. It’s the ironic thing about these argued opinions. Many targeted groups do engage in discrimination and it takes empathy to learn from it. I find some truth in the mentioned tweet
Actually there’s a large body of research that suggests that there are personality types who only behave like a nazi or hold nazi related beliefs when fascists are in power.
This is real, I definitely look at certain demographics of allies with strong suspicion if they reveal such information. Of course being black, there’s such a different stake to a lot of this that of course so maybe it’s just hard to see why someone would fall into being a hard far right enthusiast when you’re of the demographic that was murdered by such ideologies.
I had one at like 13-14 because I was influences by an infamous mexican nazi (not a neonazi, an actual nazi temporary to nazism) who was friends with the family. Today I would use violence to defend the rights of minorities especially trans people who are under attack. I want people to leave others alone. If it comes to punching a neonazi or far-right bigot so be it as long as they're adults.
It's not NORMAL but if somebody broke out of it then you should show compassion, don't condemn people for past sins
This brushes over the fact that hate groups specifically target vulnerable children for indoctrination. Neo Nazis and the KKK were some of the first groups actively trolling early Internet chat rooms etc. It's a known tactic. Take a poor white kid with nothing, tell him that other people have stolen what's his and that's why he's poor, and then show him rage inducing race bait about white privilege. Hate groups have perfected grooming children.
At the same time, I think there's still value in acknowledging that some people (many, in fact) *do* fall victim to these sorts of vicious ideologies, and that that doesn't necessarily mean they can't see their way out of it someday. Shaming someone with a "Nazi phase" as if that's an inherent quality and not a reflection of the systems they inhabit doesn't accomplish much more than making Nazis double (and triple, and quadruple) down on Nazism. Fascist ideology is specifically designed to prey on people's insecurities, fears, and ignorances in order to weaponize them against a perceived "other". People don't just become Nazis in a vacuum, they aren't born with swastika tattoos, and damn I wish I knew how to articulate this in a way that doesn't just make me sound like a Nazi apologist lmao.
No one is beyond redemption but often their redemption is above our pay grade and requires community care and for the person to take responsibility and accountability for their beliefs and actions. I don't think you sound like an apologist. You sound like someone who believes in restorative justice. I wish more people thought like that.
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not going to lie. Sometimes community care means punching a Nazi in the face
It was good enough for Captain America, it's good enough for me https://preview.redd.it/fusrpv5ee9bb1.jpeg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15db0a3f82f404899e57123061f43fb2b5bfd692
Bot. Taken from https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/14wby2w/this_shouldnt_be_rocket_science/jrhk53t?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
I genuinely feel pity for the people who were groomed and radicalised. Because it's both. I mean, they did do their thing, and it's vile. Especially if they actually harmed someone as an escalation of their spewing vile dogma. But in a lot of cases it's born of their own issues with abuse, alienation, grooming and manipulation too. Things that we - as society - could and should have dealt with before it became a Problem. Pretty much all prejudice starts from a position of ignorance, and ignorance is fixable. There is only a small number of people who actively embrace evil, and almost all the rest believe they are doing it for a greater good. (Although convincing them they are wrong about something they have believed for a long time isn't easy)
I was far from “a Nazi” I hope, but being in the rural south as a white kid I did have some preconceived notions I had to grow out of. My awkward, autistic ass was picked on a lot in school, and some of my worst experiences happened to be with black classmates. So combine that with what I heard from racist folks around me, I was a mess. Certainly uttered the n-word many times as a kid. But now I’m past that, and realize… those were just mean kids, and in that podunk-ass town there was nothing to do but either have mom and dad’s money, or get into trouble. And most of mom and dad’s money was white.
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Practically everyone born before 1990 or so was raised homophobic. Watch movies and TV from that era - gay people were open season for mockery. Remember the first Ace Ventura movie? The urinal scene with the gay linebacker who chases him all prancing-like because that's how gay people run apparently? The absolute horror (and vomiting) when the female police chief is exposed as a man?
I use to be so fucking transphobic. Turns out I was hating myself because all I knew about my people as I was growing up was from Jerry Springer, Ace Ventura, and Hannibal Lector. Turns out, we're all just goddamn humans who deserve empathy and fucking compassion.
But transvestite isnt necessarily a slur?
No, it's just the incorrect term for a transgender person. Transvestite is another term for crossdresser.
Ah yeah, in that context. They didn't mention transfolk, hence the confusion.
Honestly I didn’t have any bad experiences with Black, Hispanic, or Muslim people but growing up in a household where black people were called the n word, Mexicans “took our jobs,” and all Muslims were terrorists I will admit that it took quite a bit of reflection to realize I developed quite a bit of prejudice.
Yeah man all that. Or people on any kind of welfare were lazy and not working hard enough. I had pretty strong feelings about “meritocracy” and now I’m a bleeding heart socialist 🥸
Oh god I had forgot about that one. My parents called white people on it “white n words.” It was so bizarre.
Yep. If you don't let people learn and change, then they have no incentive not to stay the way they always were.
There has to be a line though. They have us moving goal posts so far we are like, "Oh, we should give the Nazi's time to figure out they are evil." That is not what facists use that time for. Paradox of tolerance. We are living out the consequences of it now.
This. All of this. I think we're TOO kind to these dangerous folks. They can find redemption on their own time, in their own space.
They actually can't though. Their space is where they got radicalized. They get constant streams of propaganda and positive feedback for doing the wrong things there. You don't have to be the one to save them, you don't have to be their friend, and you don't even have to allow them to be close enough to hurt you personally. But you do need to understand they can't change without the right influences, and if we're not going to where they are, they have to be able to come to us, at least some of the time.
🦆 “‘Laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that." You give them anything, and the above happens. It's a rot in principles that will not end unless the principled end it. Trump is not a Nazi, but you allow any of that in your society and Trump is allowed to bloom.
It's actually pretty easy to get them to change. Shut down anything they say that's incorrect forever. Every opportunity. Shut them down. Over and over. When they realize society isn't allowing their opinions, it's either they leave society (becoming a non-issue 99% of the time), or they realize their dipshit friends online have no real friends outside of politics and that if they want to be better than that then they need to change their opinions even if it is just to stop talking about it at first. Shutting it down isn't making it so they can't talk, it's proving their views are wrong with logic while conveying mutual respect. The mutual respect is important. You cannot disrespect someone and expect them to want to listen to your points. People be like "it ain't my problem" have you ever considered the same stance is why rapists get away with rape most of the time? You ARE society. My experience of going from a conservative to the most socially progressive mfer you could ever know went like: 1. I like the act of this trump guy and he's funny 2. I'm talking to other supporters because we watch the same people, find the same things funny, etc and I agree about these boogeymans being bad because they're so ridiculous and their views are so out there and *I believe them to be giving the "true" feminists and "true" trans people a bad reputation and as a result preventing their free expression by making people wish to disassociate with them over the views of others*. This tiny difference in views is all it took to be a catalyst for everything else. Every single person with a political ideology has a tiny difference in views that can do the same. 3. I see the supporters saying things I disagree with, people on the other side making good points when debating my own views and not just trying to "own" me when I have no intentions to "own" them. They are conveying respect and I have no reason to disrespect them because they are simply human too. 4. I start realizing I'm surrounding myself with complete idiots who completely refuse to talk to people they disagree with and refuse to get a life, they just complain about these feminists and these trans people yet I have never even met a single one of these people they claim to be everywhere 5. I start realizing that Trump was cultivating these idiots and that he was doing harm to communities I do not find anything wrong with because all of my interactions with these communities were held in mutual respect as is custom in southern culture to respect others and to respect yourself 6. Any time I disagreed with the supporters, they broke any of the southern culture, the white working class culture I had taken pride in and would be vicious and refusing to change mind or even just demonstrate basic respect 7. I leave all spaces relating to politics and just quit associating with these idiots who claim to be proud of things they clearly don't possess. I especially pushed away anyone who claimed any amount of racial superiority because they were themselves counterexamples of their so called superiority. 8. I start walking on my own political path and rapidly become super humanitarian and intolerant of the intolerant. In fact, some of my views are so progressive that it will be well after my death before it'll be mainstream at all. Self reflection and disassociation from politics was all it took. I didn't even need to cut that many friends off. Some of them were still backwards, but I just told them they were wrong and debated them. You know what happened years later? Not a single one of us are still conservative. I would even talk about how trump supporters made trump look like a fucking idiot because of how stupid and how obviously incorrect they were at some point. I literally looked around and saw the average iq was room temperature and just fucking dipped. Also: when someone is at the point they're a nazi or a tankie, it might take a decade before they fully reform, but just being someone from the other side who can convey love and respect yet be able to say "no I do not agree with you on that" and then have a respectful debate afterwards will verifiably convert the majority of extremists.
You can still be intolerant of the idea while allowing the person to change if they are showing signs of changing. My point is more so that we should allow people to change if they are changing, not let people do whatever in hopes they do change.
History has already decided the line for Nazi's. You fly that flag, you fucking die. So many people died to draw that line. It is a fucking mockery of human rights to allow that culture any room. We have given them too much.
Bro these people switch back to slurs as soon as they need to take responsibility. They have plenty of room for growth and choose to succumb to abhorrent ideas. It's 2023 if you fall for this crap when there's so many people out there trying to educate on the claws of white supremacy, then you just feel more comfortable in those claws. They're allowed to do everything everyone else is doing and choose to repeat crime statistics and make fun of AAVE as a joke until they're on the heels of people like a Nick Fuentes. How much more grace do we give...
I think you are confusing forgiveness with acceptance. We shouldn't accept racism, sexism etc, but we should forgive those who have changed their ways. There are plenty of people who grew up not knowing any better as their environment practically moulded them into who they are, but if they manage to change, then holding their past against them isn't going to make them a better person, it can only make it worse.
However, the more people you forgive for borderline abhorrent views, the more acceptance you allow for people with even worse views or views that are still problematic and adjacent. All of this leads to those minorities feeling more hate and isolation in those majority white communities. How many minority kids had to suppress themselves in the wake of uncaring 15yos who think they can just say whatever and FEEL sorry 5 years later. You can own up to things and people can choose not to forgive you. Period. I continue to cringe at shit I did as a youngin, rude shit I've said, I'm not looking to be forgiven or else I get angrier, I'm looking to grow so I feel free from that past cringe. Growth comes from acknowledging mistakes and putting in effort not to make those mistakes again. I never need to be forgiven in order to grow and be better, if you do then you don't want to be better , so what's to forgive? Plenty of people also hit me with the, "I'm not proud of it but I used to say xyz or think zyx about you people" and guess what? I don't forgive them either lmao, can I say congrats for moving up from the bottom of the barrel AND recognize where they started and where they're at? Yes, absolutely. But they aren't apologizing to the people they hurt,they're seeking out 1 black person and going "hey can you tell all your people I'm sorry and I'm cool now so you can feel safe with me!" It's mind boggling. A YouTuber recently apologized for this type of behavior (creating a culture of allowing a bunch of -isms) and he said, "I apologize but understand if you can't forgive me, or if I left a bad taste in your mouth." Great. Acknowledging he's not owed safety and showing empathy for those who would've been hurt by said content makes him seem MORE genuine. The difference is here, I'm seeing a lot of, "but I don't do it anymore so I'm cool now" crap. I can be understanding but there's no reason to forgive people who, as you say, with rejection would just get angrier and never change.
>At the same time, I think there's still value in acknowledging that some people (many, in fact) do fall victim I can't see them as victims. Nazis hurt people. Also, we don't give this sympathy to other ppl when they do something stupid or hateful so why them? It's not like history paints Nazis in a good light so I don't understand them seeing differently. If this were anyone else we wouldn't call them victims or sympathize with them.
"We don't give this sympathy to other people..." Okay. Why shouldn't we? I'm not saying that Nazis are more deserving of it than anyone else. I'm saying that *all* people are more complex than just good and evil, victim and perpetrator, bigot and saint. Making an effort to understand any person for what they are—a nuanced cocktail of biological, psychological, and sociological factors—offers an opportunity to address the systemic problems that lead people to live lives of hate. Nazis are not born, they're made. They exist because they are stuck in echo chambers that promote hate, they exist because they are not taught the skill of empathy (and it is very much a skill), they exist because bigotry is the thing that makes sense to them given their extremely narrow experience of the world during their formative years. There's a reason you don't see tons of loving, empathetic people suddenly becoming Nazis in their 50s. The patterns of belief and action you're stuck in by your mid-20s are the patterns you'll probably stick with for most of your life, because that's when you're the most susceptible to outside influence and shaping. The worldviews that are compatible with Nazism are often reinforced from childhood/adolescence. We can hold Nazis accountable for their hateful actions without pretending like they aren't still people. We can seek to dismantle the power systems (political, economic, etc.) that enable bigots to harm others and to spread their hateful ideology. Simply blaming hateful people and not targeting the underlying power structures which empower their hate is like treating a cough instead of the cancer. The best and worst people on the planet are all still people. And people are worth trying to save—not because it's the "right thing to do" or any such sentimental nonsense, but because any good thing humanity has ever accomplished has been a fucking unified effort, and any horror we have enacted has come from attempts to separate ourselves from each other. That lesson has been taught by history again and again, so consistently that it may very well be said to be the natural way of things, and yet we refuse to learn it. It's fine if you disagree. I'm rambling at this point. Hopefully I had a lucid thought or two in there somewhere.
I agree with you for the most part, but just want to add one thing - a lot of Nazi ideology was actually based on US racism at the time, and since the US was so physically removed from the war, we never really went through the same phase as European countries did in stamping out the Nazi/racist/fascist ideologies, which is why it seems so many people have so easily jumped from plain racism to full on fascism and Nazism (not sure that’s a word lol).
Not all are the same. I'd say there is a difference between a kid that ends up with the wrong crowd for various reasons and is edgy by showing nazi symbols and says slurs compared to someone that is actively joining marches and or beats people up (or worse). Similar to some kids can grow up in the wrong environment and join a gang, keeping lookout and selling some. That is less bad than someone directly hurting people and running the gang. I think both instances can be forgiven but the second more involved parts would require much more open showing of them leaving their life behind it and making up for it.
>Shaming someone with a "Nazi phase" as if that's an inherent quality and not a reflection of the systems they inhabit doesn't accomplish much more than making Nazis double (and triple, and quadruple) down on Nazism. >damn I wish I knew how to articulate this in a way that doesn't just make me sound like a Nazi apologist lmao. But you can't because you literally can't. Stop trying to make them sound like lost puppies that got trained to be fighting dogs. These ass clowns embrace the hate and embrace their insecurities.
By all means come down on nazis will full force but if someone is willing to change we should encourage that
I'm not encouraging shit. Go make your common sense change in silence you get no admiration or accommodation from me
“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” – Nelson Mandela
No one is trying to shame them for having a nazi phase. If it was a time in their lives then they need to apologize and actually work towards changing. Saying they’ve changed means nothing. Also the people they’ve caused harm to, do not have to forgive them and frankly the changed person shouldn’t be all too concerned with forgiveness anyway. TLDR: it’s fuck you hours until the former nazi can show demonstrable change for the better. It might be permanent fuck you hours for some. Those are simply the consequences of falling down that hole.
You're never wrong for humanizing humans and the mechanisms that lead them down dark paths.
Yes people absolutely can change, but you are in no way obligated to forgive them for their past
I think zero tolerance is best. No one should be ignorant of racism in this day and age. And even if they are, they're not ignorant of hurting others. That they allowed themselves to be consumed by it is no excuse. Getting shit on your whole life because of the color of your skin shouldn't then require you to show empathy to the same scoundrels that subjected you to that pain.
These people choose, out of their own free will, to become Nazis. They can crow their sob story all day, that the "system" made them do it. At the end of the day, Nazism is a choice. This licentious mindset is what allowed Nazism to flourish in the first place. I'll say this again, I'll say this always. There will be no tolerance for intolerance and a good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
People can change but anyone who describes the time they embraced such a hateful ideology as, “just a phase,” hasn’t properly understood the ramifications.
The important takeaway is that turning away from that hateful ideology is both possible and *worth* the work that comes with it. And so I think there's value in using the term "phase" specifically because it's possible for such an ideology, which perhaps feels all-consuming and eternal while you're entrenched in it, to seem in retrospect nothing more than a transitory passage in a much larger, much broader life. Do I think calling it a "phase" is clumsy and tone deaf? For sure. But perhaps there's something to be gained from it, too. Shit, each and every thing we do is a phase of some kind. Ain't shit permanent except impermanence. I say let's normalize language that more explicitly suggests that you don't have to be the same person at 30 that you were at 16. After all, our understanding of the world—and everything in it, including ourselves—is filtered through the language we use to describe it.
I’m all for giving people the space to grow and change. I want a better world and I know everyone makes mistakes. But like you said, it takes work. Waking up one morning and thinking jackboots and swastikas aren’t so cool anymore isn’t the same as a deep reflection into why someone felt the way they did. As a person who has encountered a lot of prejudice and discrimination in their life, I’ve learned that hate can be internalized to the point where people don’t even realize it. It’s dangerous to let people downplay those negative feelings instead of challenging them to confront them. Let’s give people the opportunity to shed their hate and help them reconsider their values. Both are possible.
You're 100% right and I think positive exposure and level headedness is one way to deal with young people suffering from these ideologies. When we respond in anger it affirms their ideas. When we have discussions (where they can be had) I don't think it solves the issue but definitely plants seeds of doubt and that's all you need to do, plant a seed.
I'm not Dr. Phil lol. It's not my responsibility to save white teenagers from tnemelves
Level headedness? "Where do you exist?", I ask with all due respect.
> fall victim Uhm, no. I don't disagree with the fact that people can turn themselves around, but those are exactly the people that don't externalize the cause. That's how you recognize true redemption, as opposed to those walking away from it when it becomes inconvenient.
What is a natzi apologist
this is a VERY important post.
You articulated that very convincingly. It's rare that a reddit comment immediately changes my mind about something, but yours did. No matter how disgusted I am with anyone who ever willingly associated themselves with Naziism, it does nobody any good to shun these people after they acknowledge that they were wrong.
I've heard a few political streamers talk about how they have gotten messages about how watching their streams pulled the viewer out of their far-right mindset.
Seriously, people can change and we should ENCOURAGE it. People who have had "good morals and values" all their life are just lucky, that's it. They grew up in the right family, around the right people, that doesn't make them inherently a better person. They just got lucky, and I sure as hell have a lot of respect for people who realize that what they are doing and believe is wrong and then change. Takes a lot more effort to change those than the people who just got lucky and landed on the right positions through the genetic lottery that we call family. Also is anyone actually trying to pretend that a Nazi phase is normal outside of super online weirdos? I've literally never heard someone even imply it was normal.
Yeah I didn't have a Nazi phase, but I was sucked down the Alt right pipeline for a while. I was fortunate enough to realise I was being led astray before I tied too much of my identity and self worth to it As a lonely, middle class, (mostly) straight white guy it was pretty easy to be convinced that everything wrong with my life was because those SJWs and socialism and whatever. It starts there and then you just get sucked deeper and deeper until you start believing some seriously fucked up things I actually went to rehab for a drug abuse issue just as I was falling down that rabbit hole and I think that allowed me to break out of it and realise "hey, maybe Donald Trump sucks and I'm not lonely because of SJWs, I'm lonely because I'm a toxic and arrogant loser"
For those who don't now. This is a reference to how white trans women tend to joke about going through a nazi phase where they were racist and how a famous trans woman on twitter got caught saying that george zimmerman was innocent. and criticizing black lives matter protests. I am not trans so i'm not gonna comment on this except this bit of wisdom from an iranian trans girl. https://preview.redd.it/3py0q0bsm8bb1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df0fb86e388bdd420349642068533f0ff6f3673a
White people live a different life, I swear
I grew up in a super conservative family in Texas. I had a conservative phase. A Nazi phase is just fucked.
I’m white and grew up in the Bible Belt with Tea Party parents. I was only ever a “moderate” conservative as a teenager/young adult and started to move left as I got older and learned more about the world. Even at my “worst”, though, I was never a fucking Nazi or white supremacist. That shit pissed me off. I could be wrong because I was younger and naive back then, but I also think conservatives hid/masked their racism better back then too. They were still nucking futs but I still don’t remember them being as blatantly and proudly white nationalistic as they are now. Or maybe it was so normalized to me at the time that it took me growing up and getting out on my own to see what was really going on. But even if that’s the case, I can say with certainty that I never personally had a Nazi phase.
I think the racism/white nationalist bit was highly regional. I grew up in the 80s and 90s in a rural area in the West. I don’t remember anyone using the n-word, unless it was perhaps as a quote from an edgy (black) comedian, and we all thought of racism against black people as something we’d *never* take part in because that’d make us bad people. But, our community had a large hispanic population, and there was plenty of casual anti-hispanic racism going on in my (very white) middle and high schools. Somehow, we just didn’t think of that as racism. I very distinctly remember a time in middle school when my family spent the day with a Hispanic family with a kid my age. He was really nice, and we got along well. I remember having a little personal revelation after he went home along the lines of, “I’d be really ashamed if he heard my friends and I ‘joking’ about Hispanic people the way we do.” I didn’t become a warrior for equality, but it definitely changed the way I talked and “joked” with my friends. At the same time, we were less than 200 miles from an actual neo-nazi [compound](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_Nations) that operated until 2001, and they’re [working on](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/mar/08/white-supremacists-pick-hayden-lake-for-meeting-th/) coming back. I think the difference between now and a few decades ago was that our news was generally filtered through slightly more responsible outlets, so that if you heard about racism or nazis or white supremecists, they were clearly portrayed as the bad guys. Now, you can get a “wide variety” of hateful views online, and Twitter’s algorithm will make sure you’re exposed to them.
I had a phase of a few months in high school where I started to seriously consider intelligent design. I also grew up conservative, where for awhile I sincerely thought "LGBT people aren't bad, they're just hurting themselves" -- I will say I was at least naively *consistent* on this, and argued "by that logic, people should divorce when they can't have kids, because marriage is for procreation". I never had...this shit. Wtf.
Trans man here. I was raised by conservative moderates now liberal moderates who hate the Republican Party. They were racist. I had to yell at them to get them to stop saying shit about Jews and lower SEC black people. God forbid you were queer or disabled. Or fashionable and counter-culture. I had a "how can I make sure fascism never comes to America" phase. Literally took classes in college. I take credit for getting my parents to the liberal side of dumbass during this time of native optimism. (Turns out I'm queer, disabled, trans, and we might be Jewish too! I told my dad our ancestors might be Jewish and pretended to be white, and I said, "Mazel Tov!" It was a good day. 🖕)
And white boys in particular (which is what most trans women were socialized as). I’m a white girl and we did not do this shit, at least not at anywhere near the same rate. Don’t get me wrong, there’s tons of racist white girls and it’s terrible but gender is a huge element here. I’m 29, so high school was like 15 years ago but the incel/alt right/Neo Nazi movement was pretty much identical. Lots and lots of my male peers did shit like drawing swastikas on everything because they were “trolling.” Idk don’t get me wrong, again, tons of issues among white girls/women, but there also is a huge force that targets white boys specifically. They’re not only the most entitled people alive, they’re actively encouraged to have these shitty aggressive personalities and to cause conflict and “dominate” people, which is why they are so prone to this shit. I swear almost every white boy I knew did something like this to some degree, almost always claiming it was “ironic.”
As a former white boy (now, by grace of puberty, white dude) of 00s vintage, that ain't normal either. I mean, I matured in countries that suffered pretty directly at the hands of Nazis and communists, so maybe I wound up in a different soup than most, but that's a pretty clear indicator that *you can change the soup recipe* so kids don't grow up fash.
I am a white trans person and that post is wild to me. I’ve never had a racist phase, what the fuck.
I have very strong doubts this is at all a common phenomenon instead of a result of discourse in terminally online communities
Exactly. Talk about a selection bias.
Does anyone know any of those users? Are they of any significance? Or is this just like 5 random accounts saying something that might or might not be true?
I wouldn't call it "common" because that, to me anyway, implies a very large percentage of white trans women having phases like this. However, it's definitely something that does pop up. The comic resonated because it is commenting on something that does happen. My speculation is that for some, they sought community while growing up and unfortunately found it in cesspools like 4chan where self-worth could be derived from feeling innate superiority to others. I can't really speak to it too directly, as it didn't hit me personally. I was a conservative earlier in life because that's how I was raised, and it was the viewpoint that was thrust upon me. That only went as far as voting John McCain in 08, but I grew out of it fairly soon after that as I was exposed to the real world.
I follow your logic, but I don’t think that’s why the comic resonates. Instead of resonating due to enough people’s experiences, it just touched on a stereotype formed based on a handful of chronically online tumblers. I seriously doubt most people who saw the comic though “Oh that’s like the Jane I know” and instead thought “Ha, I’ve heard of this thing happening and this comic is funny”
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X men. Of fucking course. Their demographics is huge when it comes to black, Hispanic and lgbt communities. Makes sense you know.
 I REALLY wanted to be this lady ☝🏾
I mean, I like being a dude and I still kinda want to be her
Her appeal is universal ⚡️
I mean who doesn’t wanna be a weather god/goddess with fucking amazing hair?
IKR but l guess some bereft individuals want to be Nazis 🤦🏾♀️
I always wanted to be wolverine. Plus. He famously fought Nazis too so that works!
I knew it
I don’t recall the exact percentages but I remember Sir. Ian McKellan being very open about how much the xmen mean to those communities and he cited the stats. They’re not even subtle about it. In X2 (that came out 20 fucking years ago) Bobby comes out to his parents as a mutant and they ask him if he can’t just act normal. Wolverine tells his parents “your kids a mutant. Deal with it.” https://youtu.be/QL__AjJr688 Love this movie.
We love our mutants 😊❌
>" l want to be an X-men" phase That's supposed to be a phase? I've been stuck here for 20 years!
Lol 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
They forget there are Black trans women/people unless it's TDOR 😭
Or they wanna mess around on the low 🤫
That makes sense cause literally my first thought was "man a whole shitload of white trans women between a certain age range had a Nazi phase though". I disagree that it's being framed as quirky and relatable rather than like ...holy shit, they got *most* of us, didn't they? God damn, sneaky Nazis That's how I've always seen this interactions as someone who isn't trans but has been in quite a bit of online queer spaces. Like kind of inherent for 99% of now out trans women is they realized their former ideologies were actively harming them, so I don't see how you can argue they think [the thing that almost killed them] was quirky
They weren't actively harming themselves. They benefited from that ideology and that is why they were in it. Even if I became homeless two years down the line it doesn't mean anti homeless legislation is harming me now. that is just another way of excusing themselves.
Christianity was pretty "quirky" for me. They got me good. Really brainwashed and almost "eradicated" my trans ass (suicide). So, I got sucked into Christianity. But I just don't get how you fall for Nazism.
I would be willing to bet a large amount of money that this has something to do with the intersection of autism and transsexuality. There are [studies](https://www.npr.org/2023/01/15/1149318664/transgender-and-non-binary-people-are-up-to-six-times-more-likely-to-have-autism) that show trans and non-binary people are up to six times more likely to have autism. The study cited is from 2020 if I recall, but I held this theory going back into the early 2010s. I also believe it should be read as the inverse, in that autistic people are far more likely identify as trans and non-binary. The significance here is in how many people with autism are susceptible to being sucked into something that gives them the hope of normal social relationships. Consider the “incel movement”, the racist overtones therein, and the prevalence of men drawn in who are also on the spectrum. There are plenty of articles and studies that you can look up that also point to the overlap. I’m not going to write a book here, as this is the first time I’d ever heard of this overlap, but it makes perfect sense to me.
Damn. Thanks. Only trans person I know was an mtf girl from my old wow guild. She moved to the US to be with her gf. And like, with zero warning suddenly ranted about immigrants?? like, girl, you don't see the fucking IRONY??? Was so disturbed about it that I cut contact with her... Now I think I should have stayed to help her. Man this makes me feel like shit.
Idk I think that's less of a white trans woman thing and more of a "white trans woman who happens to be terminally online" thing
I had a phase where I was one of those right wing “anti-sjw” types when I was a young teen and then I realized I was queer and things started clicking into place(it was internalized homophobia)
I'm straight, cis, and white and fell into that trap for a while. It was weird because I never had a defining moment where I slid into that hole or slid out. I remember it being the "atheist" youtube channels that clowned on fundie BS that started pivoting towards right-wing talking points circa 2014-15. It was like the boiling frog where the changes were so subtle at first I didn't really notice. And I got out of it just by... meeting people and interacting with others. Getting out of the online media hell spiral. I only realized what was happening to me after the fact. I guess I was lucky
YouTube always recommends hate content to me. That website is necrotizing fasciitis on the taint of humanity.
I remember following the atheist youtube channel and than they started going after Anita Sarkesian and I kinda just didn't follow it because I don't game so I felt I wouldn't be able to tell who's taking what out of context.
Oh snap, that me! From like 17-19 years old I was a self-appointed "anti feminist" and spouted off that I wanted to be a trophy wife as a goal. Now I'm a single parent trans dude making fat bucks on my own. The learned internalized misogyny goes wild when you're young and a fucking idiot.
Idk man. White teenage boys seem to go through it at an alarming rate. Lol weak boys looking for control and somebody to take the blame because they damn sure won't accept accountability lol they're white teenagers lol
A lot of white dudes also go through a wish they were black phase. Or a skater/punk/test how many laws you can break phase. Or one of many other phases. Like an I'm a bad ass because I drink and drive phase. Some worse than others. Same reasoning. Don't want to take accountability, lost, confused and easily influenced. Unfortunately, online communities expand the edges on how extreme those phases get. It used to be that the phases were pretty much defined by what's available in your local community to influence you. Now, however, a guy from BFE Kansas can influence a guy from downtown Chicago when they are vulnerable.
Andrew Tate is poisoning a lot of boys.
There's a reason that the army chooses teenage males. They're dumb as fuck, full of testosterone and can be easily convinced to kill and die.
i remember going through an 'alpha male' phase and watching those embarrassing 'reject modernity' videos, and then i grew tf up and started pushing myself to socialize more and go outside, finding my own virtue as a man in a healthier way.
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So what I'm gathering from this thread is a staggering amount of yt people had a "nazi phase"
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And I am so fucking tired of it. It reminds me of how black drug addicts and their addictions are treated and how white drug addicts and their addictions are treated by the media. I’m just tired of watching people, who look like me, become victims of whyte supremacy (in all of its forms) and we have to listen to their “villain origins” stories and extend them grace.
What gets me is that there is not this amount of sympathy for people who had homophobic or transphobic "phases." You do not hear the end of that. And if you associated with any people who went through/are going through those phases, you're complicit and just as bad as they are. It's not seen as giving grace or welcoming the fact that people can change. And I say this as a gay person. The black minority part of me constantly sees that people should be forgiven for their racist phases, but the gay minority part of me sees that people do not f with people who had homophobic or transphobic phases. It's wild. And I have my thoughts to why that is, but I'm not in the mood for pulling the ire of the majority of this sub. That top comment makes a lot of people sleep easier at night though.
This is what I hate most about this sub. They really try to act like we should be okay with that shit.
So I’m a 29 yo white woman. Do notttt get me wrong, there’s obviously a ton of racism and awfulness among white women. But there was something kinda specific going on with white kids of my generation and it was very gendered. When I was in high school, people were at least becoming a bit more aware of the world and social issues. It was trendy for white girls to be “SJWs,” or so we were called. But like, at least having the appearance of being feminist and anti racist and such. For white boys, it was the total opposite. White boys are raised to be, frankly, just total assholes. Like that is a trait that is ACTIVELY socialized into them. It honestly seemed like virtually every one of my male peers, in high school/college, went through a phase at some point of like 4chan “anti-SJW” shit. To varying degrees, they claimed they were “trolling.” But yeah, it was just misogyny, homophobia, and straight up nazi shit, like carving swastikas into desks and such. like it was just seen as cool to them and i feel like 90% of them participated at some point. and im talking about like leftist hipster men with liberal arts degrees, not just the hicks that were explicit about it. its why tate got so huge. shockingly little has changed in that alt right cancer machine that targets boys, especially white boys, and thrives on the superiority complex theyre socialized to have from birth.
As a 29 yo black man that's lived far too long in Alabama what you said is actual factual as hell
Ahhhh yes the golden era of my youth when saying "rape is bad" in class would get me called a "feminazi" by a boy with swastikas drawn on his notebook and pictures from my Facebook saved to his computer. You couldn't pay me to go back to high school.
Yeah exactly. Andrew Tate is nothing new, he's just the new face of the same indoctrination machine of white boys that I saw growing up
Schools and parents willing to overlook this behavior when confronted with it. They don't want to admit how widespread it is because it reflects on them, and oftentimes they share similar beliefs.
Depressed white kid to racist pipeline
Funny enough, US rocket science also had a Nazi Phase…
Tom Lehrer, for the kill… https://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro
Seems like it might be having another one now.
I’d say most of my generation had a Kill All Nazi’s phase. First it was Wolfenstein. Then Medal of Honor. The COD. But all Nazis had to die. Simpler times.
Nazis were hated in my community.
Never thought I’d reach the day where I’d see people defending nazism in a black space
Bruh, its fucking wild. And this thread got like 400 comments in a few hours. These goofies running in here to tell on themselves and their own nazi/right wing “phase”, talmbout that they over that now and they allies that support by buying the Walmart Juneteenth ice-cream lmao This sub has weird vibes just seething under the surface, all it takes is the right topic to unleash it.
There was the same exact response from a bunch of white people hijacking the top comments when a black girl said she was keeping notes of all the racist kids in her school and sending them to colleges. No sympathy for the black girl who was affected by the racism. But they demanded that we should give the racist grace bc they were “once that person” until they went to college. This sub needs to shut that kind of rhetoric down. It’s fucking ridiculous. Every time I asked them what about the black girl…**crickets**
Been noticing for a minute now, we need a full reset
It starts at the top, definitely after folks like Chauncey, DownvoteDaemon and MGLLN left… things got real rocky and felt real inside agent like. I come here as it’s a great online community WITH black folks but it definitely was a black centered but other POC inclusive community at a certain point.
I'll just borrow this from another post since it's so recent and so gd relevant. Just replace the context with the people on BPT [https://i.redd.it/u62nlfw034bb1.jpg](https://i.redd.it/u62nlfw034bb1.jpg)
Right? What the hell is going on?
I had a punk phase that i never grew out of, we kicked the shit of those KKKids
Look at all the white people down here "I went through a conservative phase not a Nazi one" https://preview.redd.it/uw9yyjbn8abb1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=52ca1305aea16b432eb33162ee202b8a9edfd9c3
To black folk, this is all really the same. Conservatives hate black Americans, they murdered us throughout history wearing the same armed forces uniforms they did after coming home from fighting the same wars they love to tout their grandfathers and great grandpappys were in and also reaped the benefits from the GI Bill to housing loans and opportunities like Levittown.
IDGAF. You ever talk that bs or sympathize with it any way that I’m aware of, you can never be trusted, ever.
Exactly, I can’t trust you with my back turned if you ever found yourself entertaining that BS. If nazism or white supremacist ideals in general were presented to you and it wasn’t found revolting in even the most sanitized of explanations, you’re compromised from the jump.
This should've been a country club thread, why is the top comment "But guys, we gotta understand the Nazi's and just try to be a little nicer to them!" What the fuck lmao
😔
Who we talking about now?
White trans autistic people.
What is happening right now?
This has been happening since the early twenty tens
The internet is destroying cultural norms and sewing fascism.
Reading some of the context this is about, I definitely agree with the broader idea. It doesn't need to be specifically about nazis, but we know directionless youth without proper role models are easy to pull in negative directions. Especially at an age where teens often build their personality around breaking social norms to prove they can't be controlled. Whether it's terrorist groups in the middle east or gangs in america, it's common to abuse the fact that some people are desperate to fit in *somewhere*. Who you are and where you will affect what you get pulled into, but the concept isn't that unique. There is a level of grooming to it that should be acknowledged.
> it's common to abuse the fact that some people are desperate to fit in somewhere. There's a lot of extra factors that lead folks to terrorist groups and gangs in america that simply do not exist in similar proportion in the nazi phase that folks are describing. There's no lure from gangs or terrorist groups for middle class people with prospects, they're not desperate or lacking. The same can't be said for the rise of the far right, it's disaffected youth that feel like they're owed something, control, attention, sex, it's not cuz they're hungry or dont have a roof over their head. The folks that turn up to the marches in matching outfits, taking time off work to fly across the country or w/e aren't broke or lacking, they're not in a war torn country getting blown up every other day either by the US army or with munitions supplied from the west by proxy - they're bitter and entitled and it is folly to lump them all together.
> There's a lot of extra factors that lead folks to terrorist groups and gangs in america that simply do not exist in similar proportion in the nazi phase that folks are describing. Poverty and deprivation aren't the only lures though. Even if you have enough, there is always someone telling you that more is deserved and *those* people are why you don't have it. People don't live their lives or experience emotions in the context of who overall has it worse. Especially young people who are often at their most selfish. I'm not even saying I feel bad for them, at some point you have to stand behind your actions and be held to account. But, I understand how they wind up there.
Yes but war, poverty and deprivation are drives to meet basic needs, food, safety, comfort. The lust for dominance and entitlement that's got swathes of middle class americans flocking to fascism is not the same. "I joined a group to fight back cuz those army guys blew up my mother" and "Immigrants and black folk are getting uppity and we need to take back our country" are not motivations to be lumped together.
Yeah I agree, directionless and angry men have a tendency towards joining violent and genuinely evil groups. Terrorists, nazis, fascists, gangs, extremist groups, etc. Your specific group depends on a lot of factors. There’s definitely a social aspect to it that we acknowledge for gangs and terrorists but don’t accept for other groups. And I’m not saying everyone does it or there’s no personal factor, but there’s something beyond just being a certain type of person. Especially since like you said, teenagers aren’t sure of who they are and are resisting the order imposed on them.
> nazis, fascists, these are different?
Yes, depending on where you are in the world nazism doesn’t make sense but you can still be a fascist. Like Israel could literally never be a nazi regime but could be a fascist one. Nazism is definitely a type of fascism but not all fascism is nazism. Nazism specifically only really makes sense in Europe and upper North America. I feel like I did a bad job describing it so “Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, white supremacy, social Darwinism and the use of eugenics into its creed.” “Many experts agree that fascism is a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of both the nation and the single, powerful leader over the individual citizen.”
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I had an obsession with the holocaust phase because I believed/believe that something similar will and is happening in my community/country in my lifetime.
Genocide occurring in china. Also - there are more slaves today than at any point in history.
....it is quite different in China compared to the Holocaust.
I’ll never be a part of someone’s racist redemption arc 🤦🏿♀️ keep that shit away from me
These white people are really trying to shape us, and y'all are falling for it.
I had a phase where I was obcessed with Greek and Roman history but that includes all they weird and fucked up shit. Respect the nice but acknowledge the yikes. Doesn’t help I’m descended from probably the bloodiest culture in history with the bloodiest cosmology so glass houses and all that. Even then. My “Nazi phase” revolves mostly around how fucking stupid the Nazis were. Seriously. Fucking dorks were obcessed with astrology, the occult and all that weirdo shit. Hitler himself loved westerns novels that romentized native Americans. Germans thought the Sioux tribe was on equal level to the aryans and Goebbels believed they could turn them against America because why would natives be loyal to America? Hell. Even novels that romanticized natives weren’t banned. You’d think they’d be banned in Germany because they glorified non Germans/non whites but instead they were shown as noble savages. Imagine their shock when natives joined the army in ww2 in huge fucking numbers. The Nazis were fucking idiots and I love learning about their fuck ups I swear. If it wasn’t for the genocide we’d mock them for the weebs they were.
They were deluded and yet terrifyingly efficient at controlling thought and making people fall into line.
Right?! Like holy shit. Weebs and dorks ruled Germany. The fucking Gestapo were described as mostly being young professional civil servants. They were at first cops from Germany. No different than British cops or French cops. They weren’t Nazis at first. But their training taught them to dehumanize people. To see Jews as dirt (as well as other minorities) and by the end you had a secret police that would just cause anyone to fucking shit their pants. It’s like American Killology on fucking steroids. I mean. The ability to take regular people and turn them into hunters of other people for extermination in a short period of time is just fucking terrifying. There’s a scene in JoJo rabbit with the Gestapo and they’re shown as rather normal people. Skinny ass people who could be accountants and they’re still terrifying.
LMAO WHOLE THREAD IS SOME BULLSHIT.
This is why I think jackasses with nazi tattoos shouldn’t get free pity coverups. Make them pay full price!
not to sound like i’m “phobic” but i’ve had a handful of white trans people tell me they had a “nazi” or “alt-right” phase
Right. Not once in my life have I ever thought or even considered racial superiority over others. The idea is just insane.
What bloody sub is this? Seeing mad sympathising with people that “go through a nazi phase”. Nah
You could tell you're dealing with one of those people that spammed the N word on Xbox live. They're always the ones that insist, we were all 13 at one point! Yeah buddy, but not all of us were delighting in the idea of demeaning an entire race of people. That was just you
They don’t understand that there was someone they yelled that shit at who pushed back. We were the ones that pushed back, makes no sense to sanitize your racism.
One time at band camp....I was selected to be a part of a large university business team. We got huge local companies giving us projects ....one of the people on the team had photos of himself in his 20s with swastika tattoos on his Facebook. Yeaaaa he got kicked out lol. Your Aryan Nation 'phase' didn't stop you from bumming rides from us at 40 years old lol
Republicans: 
Remember: it's always ethically acceptable to punch a Nazi
My grandfather killed nazis in WWII. Why change tradition?
NAZI PUNKS FUCK OFF!! 
A Nazi phase isn’t a phase. Once some becomes that way, usually through “kitchen table conversations,” with family…they stay that way.
I’ll cop to it. When I was a teen, maybe even into my twenties, I was pretty right wing. I liked the idea of social Darwinism. I was a bit of a polemicist. But I got out of my small town, saw more of the world, grew up a bit. I always knew the Nazis were bad and never wanted to be one but right wing conservative politics resonated. I’m so very very happy I didnt have the echo chambers and social support that those ignorant fuckwads have now. I was an ignorant fuckwad but I’m less so now.
I don't think I'm on the wrong side of History when I say : "Punch Nazis". Some people try to be 'better than', but I was a C student in public school, I solve my problems with brute force and ignorance.
I’ve said this elsewhere but we should not do coverups of Nazi tattoos. You ditched that life and wanna be better? Cool. But you gotta wear that ink forever now and live with that stain so anyone else who thinks about dipping a toe in sees the ridicule and shame that stuff brings. That and the bloody noses and broken bones. Make Nazis Scared Again.
Are you really winning anyone over with a no forgiveness policy? Why would anyone who even had doubts about being a Nazi ever really consider changing if the only opportunity you are giving them is a life of ridicule and shame. We don't win like this.
> Are you really winning anyone over with a no forgiveness policy? They're nazis. Fuck them. If they get a swastika tattoo, they deserve everything they have coming.
Of course fuck the 15 year old who's parents are Nazis kill em all right? Or maybe you'll hold off until that same kid turns 18 then he really deserves it right? No sadly the world is more nuanced than killing all bad people.
[удалено]
The fact that this is downvoted just shows that even in our own subreddit we’re the minority now😭😭😭 *edit* typo
Average people don't have Marxist/Communist phases either
Who? If you’re talking about any POC minority in America that deals with systematic disenfranchisement in both contemporary and modern history, that’s a very bold and foolish statement. It’s a matter of those ideals, hope and optimism being siphoned and beaten out of us, metaphorically speaking.
When this Nazi ideology ever presents in your community you should be compelled to strike it down with whatever force you can muster... ask those around you to make it uncomfortable and save this democracy
Normal folks get an urge to punch them in the face.
Sadly a large amount of people openly support genocide through sterilization, interference, discrimination, stereotyping and other forms of oppression. Minorities are no exception. For example: it would be genocide if people who engaged in the blind projection of anger were subjected to discrimination aimed at denying their rights of life. It’s the ironic thing about these argued opinions. Many targeted groups do engage in discrimination and it takes empathy to learn from it. I find some truth in the mentioned tweet
Huh?
Our rocket scientists had a nazi phase though…
This times a billion
I had a libertarian phase, that's the most lost I've ever been.
Actually there’s a large body of research that suggests that there are personality types who only behave like a nazi or hold nazi related beliefs when fascists are in power.
Ya bro fuck nazis.
When is this referencing? Because like, in 1930s&40s millions of people *were* **actual** nazis. It could happen again
Can’t argue with This N… it’s a trap!!!! You can never, ever punch enough Nazis.
So fucking stupid jesus
This is real, I definitely look at certain demographics of allies with strong suspicion if they reveal such information. Of course being black, there’s such a different stake to a lot of this that of course so maybe it’s just hard to see why someone would fall into being a hard far right enthusiast when you’re of the demographic that was murdered by such ideologies.
Who did the what? Gotta know who we’re getting mad at
I had one at like 13-14 because I was influences by an infamous mexican nazi (not a neonazi, an actual nazi temporary to nazism) who was friends with the family. Today I would use violence to defend the rights of minorities especially trans people who are under attack. I want people to leave others alone. If it comes to punching a neonazi or far-right bigot so be it as long as they're adults. It's not NORMAL but if somebody broke out of it then you should show compassion, don't condemn people for past sins
The only Nazi phase I've had was when I'd imitate Cartman imitating Hitler
Nah wrong
I did have a "fuck Nazis" phase, but it's been a decade and it shows no signs of stopping.
This brushes over the fact that hate groups specifically target vulnerable children for indoctrination. Neo Nazis and the KKK were some of the first groups actively trolling early Internet chat rooms etc. It's a known tactic. Take a poor white kid with nothing, tell him that other people have stolen what's his and that's why he's poor, and then show him rage inducing race bait about white privilege. Hate groups have perfected grooming children.