I have to address this again. I think this is important because I’ve seen this happen many many times. Recognize how surprised she is by her OWN words and how she recognizes how she sounds and tries to qualify but ends up tripping over herself several times. https://twitter.com/_almaqah/status/1311516809582063616

Recognize how much she is hesitant and starts and stops because she knows EXACTLY how what she’s saying sounds. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen some white folks surprise themselves by what they’re saying about others in the moment. This is what’s happening here

She literally says these people are most likely going to be single mom’s who are struggling and people that are not the same “class” as us. Essentially, these people are repulsive and they’re not like “us.”

I have never seen someone work so hard to deny racism and bigotry while deploying it at the same time

“I’m def not racist or a bigot but I think I hold a little bit of a stigma towards people that are different”

She contradicts herself.

She also enters racism and bigotry in the convo which makes me think she had a certain people group in mind and anticipated the response of critics which is why she had to do the usual “I’m not racist” qualification.

Same thing the woman who threatened to call the police on the black man in the park in NY did. A liberal woman who claimed to have voted for Obama got on CNN & said “I’m not racist” even though she emphasized the black man’s race re police in her threat. Y’all see?

I think this lady in this video is like a lot of folks that I & others have come in contact with that have all these internal thoughts about the “other” that sounds good until they say it out loud. She surprised herself and then it turns into an intellectual crisis in the moment

“I feel so bad saying that..”

“That sounds bad but I don’t mean it in a bad way”

“I’m not racist or bigoted in any way”

Why do you feel bad?

Why does this sound bad?

Why the qualification?

Could it be because it actually IS as bad as it sounds?

I also think this is why the total repudiation of critical white studies is terrible because there is legitimacy in how whiteness—as a construct—has shaped some of those in this nation that fall under its umbrella. Mainly in being able to dismiss their own bigotry & racism

Even if they themselves deploy such in the moment. This is the reason why folks don’t always buy the whole “I’m not racist” statement because some who say it view racism in a way that is a caricature and in every historical era racists will deny their racism.

Folks who were FOR segregation denied that they were racists. Folks that repudiated the ideas of the civil rights movement also said they weren’t racist. To think that this still doesn’t continue would be naive - esp when you see actions not aligning with words.

I think the woman in the video is really making the qualification for herself. I think she’s trying to convince herself that it’s not racism or bigotry because she’s knows exactly what it sounds like. I think the qualification is her own self reassurance. Just my opinion.

This seems like quintessential cognitive dissonance