
The old man is old school racist. He grew with much different exposure to the conversation and is honestly past saving. He will live a life full of anger, discomfort and hatred and will die that way The 13 year old is different. He learns this behavior from the communities he’s on online, and it’s reinforced by the attention it gets him (his friend’s laughs and our outrage)
It’s cult 101. You join a community and you are made to believe you are “in the know”. These people think they have broken out of the matrix of wokeness…. that they’d discovered empathy is just a social strategy for the weak… that people police their language because they are just sheep who follow orders. This is the reality of new gen bigotry
The 13 year old thinks he’s being edgy and cool and is showing that he hasnt been “brainwashed by the system”. They do it as social signaling. As rage bait for a reaction. When you tell them they can’t say it and that it is bad…. they roll their eyes and write you off in their minds as a 🐑
The problem is, if we normalize the 13 year old boy saying it and don’t prevent him from being in these online communities he’s gonna become the 85 year old man down the street. Joking about it takes away the impact the word has and makes it easier for ppl to become right wing extremist
Yes, we shouldnt normalize it we just need to react differently. Also idk if there’s a way to prevent them from joining the communities, (like all cults) they thrive on the exclusivity so we may need to just mainstream them, but we need to know theright way to react after that