Musings: The Friend Argument

[JHan]

"The friend argument is an argument used by people who want to claim knowledge about and/or sympathy with a group, by referring to their "friends" belonging to this group. It is commonly used to clear and absolve oneself from suspicion of racism, xenophobia or other kinds of prejudice. It is a particular form of the "Not prejudiced, but..." statement.
Conversely, if the above argument — that "if you're close to somebody, you can't wish to do them harm" — were true, one would expect to see far fewer (read: zero) domestic abuse cases.

The friend argument is one of the laziest ways to try to worm out of accepting the responsibility for endorsing prejudice. The idea is that someone cannot be prejudiced if they have friends of that demographic; if they had a real prejudice against that full group, then none of them would be okay to hang around, and conversely, then that member of said group would no longer be their friend.

In a rather absurd example, someone can cite a specific example that excuses their general behaviour, for example "how can I be a misogynist, I love my mother."- or, in an even more absurd example "I'm not sexist- after all, all of my girlfriends have been female." While this line of reasoning might be true for someone who genuinely doesn't have a general prejudice, it isn't a good argument to prove it - and it certainly doesn't absolve someone who actually does hold such a belief. Such argumentation can be used as 'evidence' that someone is not prejudiced, but this alone does not amount to 'proof'. The underlying fallacy is that one single point of data, this one "friend," completely overrides any other bits of evidence we have to assess someone's views. This is simply not valid reasoning. The presence (or not) of a prejudice is determined by what follows the "But..." in those above examples, not what comes before.

Often, the excuse is accompanied by the fact that this hypothetical friend is "not typical" of the group being discriminated against. This would be like saying "I have a Muslim friend, he's not a typical Muslim because he doesn't fly planes into buildings," or "my friend is an atheist and he doesn't preach about it like Dawkins". This usually reveals more about where someone's prejudices towards a group stem from; anecdotal evidence, selective reporting of the "bad" ones, or existing stereotypes. The fact is, a person attempting this argument is guilty of forming a prejudice against an entire group by only looking at a few examples that confirm their views."

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Friend_argument

[sheshe2]

1. There is always a but.

Sorry, my answers are short and sweet my laptop caught a virus and is in the hospital, antibiotics will cure her but for now I am on my phone for the next few days &...it makes it hard to respond.

Great OP!

[JHan]

5. what's amazing to me is that no matter how often this is pointed out..

people STILL say this shit.

[sheshe2]

7. Ya... but

[JHan]

8. LOL

[The Polack MSgt]

2. Some of my best friends are white people, but...

Nice post JHan

[JHan]

6. Yep. It's just absurd.

[wildeyed]

3. My FIL told me that the Mexicans he liked who lived down the street were not like most Mexicans.

Big eye roll from me. Those are the ONLY Mexicans he knows. He likes those Mexicans, might even consider them friends. But he is still racist about Mexicans. Also Blacks and Jews, but that is for another day. Sigh....

He is in assisted living now. I take good care of him, overall, but I did program his parental controls and blocked Fox News as a tiny protest of his regressive views.

[JHan]

4. good move blocking FOX,

And I can't tell you how many times I've heard it in my life - variations of

I can't be racist because:

"I have a black friend"

" I listen to black music..."

" I read a book by a black author once."

" I dig black chicks"

etc etc etc

[sheshe2]

9. Good block!

Good job.

Best, do your father-in-law.

[ismnotwasm]

10. I have this story

When I was young, I ran away from home and hit the streets. Many stories later, I had developed a way of talking street, and hanging out with other dispossessed and damaged young people. I found a different identity then poor working class white--in my case it was hanging out almost exclusively with Native Americans in the city. Many stories later, when I was secure, In school and stable and white, I made attempts to use my experience to have NA's relate to me---in retrospect, I was NOT to trying to relate to them-- While I never ran into rudeness, I found a..wall.. there. I came to understand this, What were my very few years of experience to a people who have been battered for centuries? What did I know about having my culture ripped away, stolen and denigrated and being lost in the city? Compared to the NA experience what I saw and felt was incidental.

So I learned, and what's interesting, that it wasn't until I was off the streets and a functional human, I met powerful NA's deeply involved in their very active and diverse cultures.

I knew nothing, because of how I process experience--through Whiteness. A lesson I carry with me always.

[JHan]

11. Thanks for sharing your experience ...

My thoughts on this are kinda meandering and..exploratory. I'm still figuring it out.

You touched a bit on Privilege ( whiteness) which is real but not always clear cut. For me, in some respects I grew up privileged, in others not.

There is no way to fully relate to the uniquely horrific experiences of another ethnic group especially when attitudes, and systemic biases, still exist which are symptomatic of the way society views "minorities" through a bigoted lens .........and misogyny , for example, validates those attitudes hence terms like "misogynoir".

But suffering itself isn't unique to any ethnic group. It's possible for a white person to acknowledge the ugly legacy of history and become sensitized to the way it manifests itself without feeling guilt or burdened by it, or feel their own personal suffering is diminished in comparison. And this is where I have a bit of a problem with intersectional politics. The methods used by forces which oppress and divide haven't changed , if we focus too much on the "walls" than the commonalities of suffering we end up splintering into Balkanized groupings, feeling unable to relate to each other.

[ismnotwasm]

12. +1000

[brer cat]

13. "It's possible for a white person to acknowledge

the ugly legacy of history and become sensitized to the way it manifests itself without feeling guilt or burdened by it, or feel their own personal suffering is diminished in comparison." I can't do that, JHan. I do feel guilt, I did have privilege, the discrimination and harassment that I endured as a white woman is diminished if compared to what many women of color have endured.

You and I both participated in sheshe's excellent thread on economic justice and social justice. You brought up the similarities to a woman's reproductive choices being limited. I *thought* that but would not have posted it out of concern that it would appear demeaning in that context. But your point is excellent and I need to ponder that. There is always someone who has suffered greater, longer, more brutally, and building those walls does make it very difficult for us to relate to each other.

[JHan]

14. I get that and thank you for being such a great ally btw

I think that's what we should talk about more - how to be better allies for each other.

But when walls are erected you get tribalism and the only thing to cure tribalism is cosmopolitanism and plurality.

In these social justice arguments, there's so much that's relevant, so many examples of groups that get shafted because they're not rich, white and male. So women's "issues" and ethnic divides ( which affect the health of minority communities ) must be central to the discourse.

I didn't want to rehash sanders statements either, because socio vs Econ argument has been in existence for decades, but I never thought it would be a front burner issue in 2016 .....sigh.

[brer cat]

15. You are absolutely right.

It is very difficult to discuss these issues without it degenerating into a rehash of 2016 and that makes us miss the entire point while continuing to sow divisiveness. It isn't about Sanders, and it is much bigger than any politician.

I belong to a FB group LOWPAWS, League of White People Against White Supremacy. There is good stuff there but what strikes me most is the tiptoeing around. I think many white members are afraid to question, to perhaps critique a video by a Black person talking about WP if they don't quite feel comfortable with what was said. It's like we all think "well if a Black person said that, we must agree or we are not being good allies." It can be hard to get out of that mindset. I remember when Bill Cosby, whom I adored as a comedian, gave his Pound Cake speech and the white Christian world rejoiced. I was like WTF, but afraid to speak out because this was The Man and who was I to say WTF? It was actually a great opportunity to open a dialog with my Black friends and acquaintances, but I stayed silent, didn't want to offend by even asking "what did you think about that?"

That is a critical value of this group on DU. We should be able to take out the politicians and have honest and open conversations about race, women's issues and social justice with the hosts serving as the moderators. There once was lively discussion here but politics and alerting by outsiders made it difficult if not impossible to continue. I learned more then than from any other forum or group here, even getting my ears pinned back a few times.

[Iggo]

16. K&R

[Odoreida]

17. How many of these black friends ...

How many of these black friends are imaginary friends with the same relevance as the giant talking rabbit friend?