Rosalind Wiseman

Editor’s note: If you choose to listen to the audio of Mel Gibson’s recent outburst, be warned: it contains graphic and racist language.

After reading the latest on Mel Gibson’s bigoted tirades on every group besides the one he belongs to, I came across a great short tutorial on YouTube entitled, “How to Tell People They Sound Racist”. Its message gets right to the point:

1) Call people out when they denigrate someone else based on any type of “ism”.

2) Be strategic about how you do it.

Being strategic means focusing on the specific actions they did that were hurtful, not who they are as a person. It’s the difference between saying, “Hey that thing you said was racist,” and, “You are a racist.” Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because if you attack someone’s whole person it makes it much easier for them to dismiss the merits of your argument. It allows the person to take no responsibility for their actions and makes it almost impossible for them to be more thoughtful about the things they do in the future. And not to get all idealistic, but if more of us could do what the guy in the video is suggesting, we’d all be a lot better off.

Check it out below.

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