Training with the ill intentioned

With the recent BLM stuff, a lot of racists have openly come out of the wood work.

A MA club I train at has a uni student program that I'm involved with mentoring and one of the students has really racist views (obvious on social media).
Obviously I'm not keen in helping develop the skills of someone who has a real hate towards others.
I'm also in one of the minorities that the student dislikes (surprisingly so are they, theres a lot of self hate).

Other MA clubs they are in have asked them to stop sharing hate on social media or to drop attending the club. The student chose not to attend.
(Bear in mind other members of this club have tried to engage him in conversation to move them away from extremism with little success).

At our club, my coach is really into "freedom of speech" and "people having their own political beliefs independent from the club". I disagree that racism is a legitimate political belief that should be respected.
For this reason I havent brought it up with my coach.

I don't feel like all the minority students should be burdened with having to talk this guy down from extremism (in my town its normal to explain on a weekly basis that you were born in the country and are a citizen despite the colour of your skin so i think it's unfair to burden the minority students).

Any advice for how to handle training with this guy.

 

If your capable of it, and the class structure allows it, can you grind him into the mat, and point out he's a weak example of his race, and his ancestors should be ashamed?

Freedom of speech and all that.

More seriously, don't mentor him, don't aide him, and let the social circle judge him for himself.

And if you get the change, within the rules, smash him so he won't come back.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

 

Problem is, this guy is a north African of Muslim ancestry that believes in anglo-saxon/north and western european white supremacy.
He probably hates his ancestors and himself.

Additionally I always grind these kids into the mat.
He's only 18 tbf and I wonder if he just needs to talk to more people? But I don't know how receptive he'll be and I don't think I have the energy.

 

Got to talk it out. Get him to talk to people he respects but has opposing viewpoints with. That said, what's his saying? Like dog whistle racism or out and out racism?

 

It's a mix of both, heres a pretty out and out meme he's shared:
The West Knows Best, Screw The Rest

He also has things like videos of random brawls in london involving black and brown folks with his own comments of "Import Somalia and Pakistan, get Somalia and Pakistan".

 

I checked out that page and reported it as Hate Speech to Facebook. Apparently that page has been shut down over a hundred times and been remade. So somebody is really sweaty behind that page. Keep in mind, endurance has its limits, but that also applies to racist hate and the energy they have to offer. It's really a war of attrition you need to wage, not of violence but of peace. Peace wears down violence, smothers it in a way, like Aang smothered Fire Lord Ozai. And finding peace is no easy task, it exists only in the man who walks the path. Kwai Chang Caine (played by David Carradine) exemplifies grace under racial inequity. All life is struggle, but how we blame it on others is a testament to our own individual legacies, like a man trapped in the Wild West who isn't quite American or Chinese, but finds his path anyway.

Yes, I've been binge-watching the old Kung Fu television series lately. Master Po!

 

That's just strange, he just needs more contact with others, bare in mind if he has that level of self hatred going on, he could very well go off the rails quite explosively, keep an eye on him.

 

I think I would stay away from him. You will always have some people like that in the world. It is really sad. You might think about going to another school. You don't need that aggravation.

 

I think you answered your own question there.

You have no obligation to help someone who hates you. Just tell your coach you're not willing to do it. You can frame it as you not wanting politics to interfere with training, so that kind of plays to their wishes. It's not you who has brought politics into things, it is the student.

Having said that, exclusion is not the way to tackle racism, especially for a teenager. Isolation will only feed the victim complex and draw them into the arms of racist organisations. Sunlight is the best disinfectant and all that....

But that doesn't mean that YOU have to be the one to do it, because it will require some emotional investment.

It does sound like a strange case. He would be just the kind of token face a far-right group would want, to lend an air of "we're not racist" to the organisation.

 

I think that having our thoughts closer to our fingertips and not having to express these views to another human being has brought out some interesting and ultimately depressing situations like this.

Also the reason we have furries now.

 

Of course everyone is right, this guy needs to be challeneged.

I don't think its being thought police when his fb is public and he posts the same views to his university's fb page in response to their BLM statement.
I can't trust that the uni won't just kick him out and not address them(my uni had racism scandals in the past, some I was involved in reporting and nothing ever came of them).

My town is too small so moving club isn't an option and the other clubs here are honestly worse, one is run by a conspiracy theorist/antisemite (who's a crap teacher) and another a far right guy.

Honestly I'm exhausted.
I've mentioned this to Mushroom privately but theres a guy at the end of my street who used to have a van plastered with white supremacy logos.
This has been removed and in its place are brexiteer stickers. He now has 4 vans and a minibus with stickers and new people at his house all the time.
I live in a place where on my doorstep I'm watching a (possibly former/probably current) white supremacist grow a grassroots political organisation and have to hope/ worry daily that he doesn't turn on the only interracial couple on his street.
I'm trying to move obviously.

He can grow his organisation so quickly but I have to sell myself to each racist person I meet as the perfect person, the perfect nonthreatening brown guy, always smiling so that people see me as human enough to have a conversation. So that I can become friendly enough with them that they view other minorities as human.
It takes so much time to convince people that I'm human. That I just do normal things like drink coffee, binge netflix and work or that I want normal things like a roof over my head, a safe life for my family and equal treatment.

It feels like a losing battle and I'm so exhausted. I have to convince each racist at a time but he can radicalise so many so quickly.
Its a losing battle because now instead of convincing people that minority people are human I have to convince a minority guy that he himself is human.

 

I'll send you the guy on fb, you'll notice the mutual friends you have in common with him are all problematic and racist. In at least as much as they like his racist memes.
Some of those guys run clubs on my town.

 

Honestly I wish I was white.
It seems when youre white on the UK it's easier to deal with hearing other white people say racist things about minorities the UK as you can often just ignore it. It doesn't affect you directly.

White UK MAPpers, give me hope, are you guys actually confronting racist things when you see and hear it?

 

Man that's so upsetting and I'm sorry to hear that. I doubt I'm doing my part to be honest. I get so sick of arguing with people online. In person I can't say I've heard many out-and-out racist thoughts spoken because I don't hang out with racists I guess.

 

That is really depressing to hear. That anyone should wish to be different to accommodate other people's ignorance and hate is awful to hear.

Have you considered moving? Racism is something I hardly ever witness in the real world. I lived in Bristol for the best part of 20 years and only ever encountered people being openly racist when they were marching in the streets, and they were always outnumbered by the people marching against them.

I'm not on Facebook, so I guess that insulates me from a lot of online racism, but whenever I encounter it on the few forums I'm on, I never let it pass. Online, I find it is best to produce facts dispassionately, as a visceral reaction is usually what they want. I think that wearing them down with studies, academic articles and the like until they react with insults is the best way for other people reading it to realise the racists are ignorant. Especially now that "race realism" and pseudoscience has made a comeback, with all those "red-pilled" people thinking they "aren't racist but...".