Oh yeah big time. I see it primarily in discussions about religion. Progressive people like to act as though any Christian has the same mentality as the Westboro Baptist church cult. Its a real bummer.
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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"Progressive" describes a position, not a person. A person can be many things. A person can hold contradictory viewpoints, and fully believe two incompatible thoughts at the same time. It's tragically naive to assume that people are rational or consistent.
Can a person think they are progressive and also be a bigot? Of course a person can. Everybody is the hero in their own story.
Good examples from others but I also want to bring up microaggressions. Basically, small things that add up, like a white woman gripping her bag tightly when a black man enters an elevator, or a white man crossing the street because a Latino guy is approaching who looks a little "gangy." Usually they aren't that progressive (e.g. they support diversity but critical race theory is a bridge too far).
That said, prejudice is something we all have and is part of human nature. It protects us historically from things like snakes and spiders who may not be venomous but on the off chance they are, better safe than sorry. Prejudice leads to stereotypes, stereotypes lead to discrimination. Conscious effort is needed to overcome that, and progressives do that better than not but no one is fully immune to your natural instincts.
A lot of microaggressions are assumed to be about one thing but are actually something else. Maybe the white woman clutched her purse because he was a man. Maybe she was just moving it closer in a tight space. Maybe he reminded her of someone specific. Sure, it is probably race and if the same person does it multiple times it could be confirmed. And yes, it is totally reasonable for a black man to see a bunch of white women clutching purses and assume there is a pattern even if not every single one was due to racism.
Microaggressions are one of those things that are real while also frequently misread because it is impossible to infer intent from a single vague action. Better to assume the minority/oppressed group is right, and if accused of something in error just let it go.
I've seen liberal POCs say racist shit about White people more times than I can count.
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Is there supposed to be some equivalence between being politically progressive and not being discriminatory?
The way I see it is we're all equal opportunity assholes, it's just the context that differs. Ones politics does not make one a paragon of virtue.
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I’ll use myself as an example.
There were some guys having an argument in another room, and it got increasingly intense. They were speaking some kind of Arabic. I thought they were genuinely mad at each other, but then one of them mentioned an athlete’s name and started listing what sounded like stats.
While telling this story at a party, I said something like “Arabic is a very angry-sounding language.” I noticed someone’s eyes get large, and I didn’t realize until then how racist I had unintentionally been.
Later, I thought more about it. Any language that you don’t understand sounds bad if people are having an emotionally charged conversation. It didn’t occur to me until then how easy it is to be thoughtless and racially insensitive.
I generally try not to be an asshole, but I messed up big time. I have no idea who he was, but I’ll always be grateful to the guy whose eyes got big. He gave me a much-needed reality check.
“Arabic is a very angry-sounding language.”
Arabic speaker here and this sounds like the most harmless statement of all time. I mean you're right in that it was probably more about the emotionally charged concepts than Arabic as a language, but still, I think this is one of those "white people getting mad at other white people when the minority in question wouldn't think much of it" things.
People often say that German sounds angry. It has nothing to do with the skin color or religion of the speakers. I've not thought of Arabic as an angry language, but I don't think that's a racist statement.
The Klingon language is entirely artificial, it was created to bring an aggressive and war-like alien race to life. You'll find people referring to it as "Space German."
If someone from a country has a history of making stereotypes about Arabic men being terrorists then saying their language sounds angry is in line with those cultural stereotypes. If I heard a white person in the US saying that it would come across as racist.
I dunno', unless I hear shouting and those typical inflections of, "I'm REALLY pissed off", I'll only ever think an argument in French is going to lead to rough makeup sex.
lol they were definitely invested in the topic. They were shouting and occasionally slamming things around.
Tbf, Mandarin sounds aggressive AF even tho I speak mandarin, every sentence sound like a military command.
Cantoese, on the otherhand, sounds very passive-aggressive and condesending instead.
What I mean is, when I told my mother I wanna jump off a bridge and kms, she told asked me if I want a ride to the bridge, "we can leave right now, the car is outside" (spoken in Cantonese), and then laughs like its funny somehow. Wtf mom?!?
I'm progressively discriminating. Everyone is equally annoying and I hate you all. 😁