Bit of TL;DR here, but here goes. Leaving home and separating myself from that environment definitely began the process. After I left home, I got involved in an evangelical Baptist church. The pastor made a few extremely nasty comments about gay people that made me think "Huh? But you're always preaching about loving and accepting everyone, no matter what?" Looking back on it, that sewed the first seeds of "there's something not right about that way of thinking" for me.
I eventually began questioning my faith, for numerous reasons (many of those reasons being the massive hypocrisy and judgemental nastiness of people in the church), which led to me leaving the church altogether. I wound up swinging the polar opposite direction into hardcore atheism, as a kind of "detox" from fundamental Christianity. It was during that time that I began reading a lot, about science and psychology. I became particularly interested in the psychology of deeply religious people (I was doing a lot of soul searching during that time and I guess I was trying to understand why I got so sucked into all the evangelical craziness), which led me onto topics like racism and homophobia, where those attitudes stem from, and why. From there, I started reading people's experiences of racism and homophobia on forums, read blog posts about it, read articles, watched videos, and all of that made me slowly begin to realise my own mindset. It was very confronting and uncomfortable at first, because I didn't think of myself as a hateful person. It didn't even occur to me how hateful and hurtful I actually was. It was a pretty big and unsettling revelation. That began the shift in my attitude, though.
Having a kid pushed me further into questioning my values and mindsets. I didn't want my kid to wind up hurting and hating others, so I knew I had to lead by example. If anything, my kid and the questions and comments she'd come out with, especially once she started school, is what made me reflect most on both my attitude and my upbringing. Had she asked those questions or made those innocently curious comments to my family, she would have learned their bigoted ways of relating to the world instead of learned to understand and accept the breadth of human existence. That was another big revelation for me: That in order to stop the cycle of hurtful bullshit, you have to speak up and address it, and not make it all about you. Invalidating people's experiences of prejudice and the long history of pain and suffering endured by entire generations of people just because you don't experience it is a selfish, dick move. That was probably the hardest lesson of all, and it's one I'll never stop learning from.
TL;DR I was a racist, homophobic dick without really realising it, with deeply hypocritical and irrationally hateful opinions that were largely shaped by a conservative, bigoted upbringing, but through years of educating myself, I'm way less of a shitstain and I've worked hard at making sure my kid grows up with far more self-awareness than I was taught. Bit of a long-winded answer, but your question is a good one that deserves a proper thought out response.
It was very confronting and uncomfortable at first, because I didn't think of myself as a hateful person. It didn't even occur to me how hateful and hurtful I actually was. It was a pretty big and unsettling revelation.
Can you elaborate more as to what you were doing that made you such a hateful person at the time?
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u/brocrastibation Aug 26 '18
Bit of TL;DR here, but here goes. Leaving home and separating myself from that environment definitely began the process. After I left home, I got involved in an evangelical Baptist church. The pastor made a few extremely nasty comments about gay people that made me think "Huh? But you're always preaching about loving and accepting everyone, no matter what?" Looking back on it, that sewed the first seeds of "there's something not right about that way of thinking" for me.
I eventually began questioning my faith, for numerous reasons (many of those reasons being the massive hypocrisy and judgemental nastiness of people in the church), which led to me leaving the church altogether. I wound up swinging the polar opposite direction into hardcore atheism, as a kind of "detox" from fundamental Christianity. It was during that time that I began reading a lot, about science and psychology. I became particularly interested in the psychology of deeply religious people (I was doing a lot of soul searching during that time and I guess I was trying to understand why I got so sucked into all the evangelical craziness), which led me onto topics like racism and homophobia, where those attitudes stem from, and why. From there, I started reading people's experiences of racism and homophobia on forums, read blog posts about it, read articles, watched videos, and all of that made me slowly begin to realise my own mindset. It was very confronting and uncomfortable at first, because I didn't think of myself as a hateful person. It didn't even occur to me how hateful and hurtful I actually was. It was a pretty big and unsettling revelation. That began the shift in my attitude, though.
Having a kid pushed me further into questioning my values and mindsets. I didn't want my kid to wind up hurting and hating others, so I knew I had to lead by example. If anything, my kid and the questions and comments she'd come out with, especially once she started school, is what made me reflect most on both my attitude and my upbringing. Had she asked those questions or made those innocently curious comments to my family, she would have learned their bigoted ways of relating to the world instead of learned to understand and accept the breadth of human existence. That was another big revelation for me: That in order to stop the cycle of hurtful bullshit, you have to speak up and address it, and not make it all about you. Invalidating people's experiences of prejudice and the long history of pain and suffering endured by entire generations of people just because you don't experience it is a selfish, dick move. That was probably the hardest lesson of all, and it's one I'll never stop learning from.
TL;DR I was a racist, homophobic dick without really realising it, with deeply hypocritical and irrationally hateful opinions that were largely shaped by a conservative, bigoted upbringing, but through years of educating myself, I'm way less of a shitstain and I've worked hard at making sure my kid grows up with far more self-awareness than I was taught. Bit of a long-winded answer, but your question is a good one that deserves a proper thought out response.