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Thread: Fictional assumption of guilt

  1. #1
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    Fictional assumption of guilt

    We are a social species. Part of our interaction is to tell stories. We do it all the time. Since just about everything is made up of good, bad and ugly our stories tend to have these components.
    I lived for most of my life in Rhodesia.
    So when I tell a true story about an experience in Rhodesia, it will often be made up of good, bad and ugly. Readers will be quite happy if not thrilled, when I recount a trip that I made in Rhodesia with its beautiful roads, infrastructure and amenities.
    However if include the fact that the trip was "soured" by me being gratuitously refused admission and service at a Hotel on account of my skin tone the story loses its appeal for so many, who then take offence, go into attack mode and typically accuse me of “having a chip on my shoulder”.
    This happens even though the story is 100% true, was part of Rhodesian reality, in which they themselves played no part, and in respect of which they do not stand accused.
    But they go into defense mode, start frothing at the mouth and generally act as if they have been accused, insulted, demeaned and vilified.
    Why??
    They are no more guilty or responsible for the events of the past, good, bad or ugly than I am. But they take offense.
    As a jurist, I can only resolve this as a kind of fictional assumption of guilt. By this I mean that they are guilty of nothing but become imbued with feelings of guilt. They act out these feelings of guilt by going into attack mode.
    It is not something I understand for a nanosecond. Can someone please explain it?

    Can someone please explain why I have been kicked off 5 Rhodesian Facebook sites for just telling true stories of the good bad and ugly about Rhodesia. In telling these stories I was simply recounting the “whole truth” about my life that they played no part in.
    If they played no part in it, why take offense??

    Having read a litany of comments on Facebook, it seems to me that the only logical explanation is that I am coming up against racists.
    They are aware that I was subjected to insult and oppression by members of their ethnic grouping and, because they think imagine and suppose that I deserved this simply on account of my ethnicity, they think I should just shut up about it.

    Am I correct ... or is this a form of pernicious tribalism?

    "We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it" Abraham Lincoln.
    Last edited by ChrisNG53; 03-Jul-17 at 01:28 PM.
    Let us have the conversation!
    Blog: http://coginito.blogspot.com Cognito ergo sum

  2. #2
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    Don't be deterred from telling your story and don't be offended by those that react negatively. The facts as truly and fully told are the facts and those that take offence do so for their own reasons not yours. In my humble opinion, racism is as much in the eye of the claimant as it is claimed to be in the eye of the accused. And lets not kid ourselves, it probably resides in ALL of us even if in the form of classism. The Biblical "plank in the eye" issue.

  3. #3
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    Thank you for a very sentient comment.
    The converse is that many Black folk, in particular, choose to take offense at the actions of humans who are long dead and whose actions did not affect them personally.
    "The Rhodes must fall" campaign was a manifestation of this syndrome.
    Rhodes only did what was par for the course in them days, no more, no less.
    "Go forth, invade, conquer and subjugate" had been a universal go to culture across this planet from the time Cain killed Abel. Even slavery was "normal".
    However, we saw current humans frothing at the mouth and going hysterical in imposing current values, morality, and behavioral codes on a past era in which they did not exist.
    Let us have the conversation!
    Blog: http://coginito.blogspot.com Cognito ergo sum

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