On one hand, I suppose it means attaching social shame to being openly racist *does* help to make things better, but for all the good that might do, the second people can espouse plausible deniability a huge wave of spiteful and untargeted cruelty just unleashes overnight

most painful part of the Russian business nonsense is every article ends up noting many of these "Russian" restaurants are Ukrainian, but because the West is too clueless about world cultures, they all just branded themselves Russians because people didn't know what a Ukraine is

@ToastCrust This is not a new lesson. Just off the top of my head: Anti-Muslim sentiment that started in the aughts. The whole Freedom Fries thing because France didn't want to illegaly invade Iraq with us. Japanese internment during WW2.

@lasagnadeathray the scale and trigger of the 00s Anti-Muslim wave is on a different level from the things I mentioned, so I don't want to conflate them as the same, even if racism and xenophobia exists in both Freedom Fries is stupid but I think that was about war fever and nationalism, not race

@ToastCrust It's the same thing over and over and over again. To be quite frank I'm tired of it all. Call it me getting desensitized, but I've been avoiding social media since the start of this mess.

@ToastCrust This is what America has become. Looking for a reason to be openly racist and it being seen as “OK” because the ones they are harassing are the cause of their problem. It’s sick and a sad state of affairs. We need better hate laws and stronger punishments.

@ToastCrust @fossilpath You hit it in that last bit. They don’t know the difference and it’s just about hating foreigners.

@ToastCrust And as an addendum to what you said, somehow these people think being racist and cruel is a public service. And that reflects on society as a whole maybe more than the individuals doing what they do.

@ToastCrust I think it ties back to hyper individualism issues of the west I already see takes like "If I saw Putin was corrupt I simply wouldn't have let him stay in power" while these people ignore that the people who were very openly against Putin were... "displaced"

@ToastCrust @InfluenceNot The Chinese owner of the takeaway shop where I live got so much racist abuse from previously friendly English customers during the first year of the pandemic. A nice man with children, who works long hours selling great low-cost meals to the community. He considered closing down.

@ToastCrust @MattyPastelion People forgot about middle eastern and indian racism already eh.

@ToastCrust @DigitalLuver Under the guise of moral obligation no less, it's so sad to see. You can stand against tyranny without being tyrannical yourself, one of the strongest shows of defiance can be empathy and camaraderie.

@ToastCrust Iraq becomes the enemy: racists get racist against Middle Easterners China becomes the enemy: racists get racist against East Asians Russia becomes the enemy: suddenly racists specifically target people and things labeled "Russian" instead of getting racist against white people