I’ve been a big fan of Ericka “Boze” Bozeman’s content for a long while. For those that don’t know, she’s a Twitch streamer who mostly handles true crime but does it through a lens of psychology and attempted understanding. She does not offer the killers any grace but she does try to understand them and use that to help her viewers handle these kind of people in their day to day lives.

The other day, I watched this video:

And was struck by the quote that I posted at the beginning. The idea of racism as a bonding tool instead of being true abject hatred. I being a dumb white man have never had to deal with racism and have definitely benefited because of my skin color, let’s be real here.

But I’ve definitely been on the other end, where someone has tested the waters with me to see if I hate whatever group that they hate. I remember during the pandemic, I was walking to my car and this man pulled up next to me. He was holding his camera like he was filming me and he started saying racist things about Asian people and pointing out that they must have known something because they were already wearing masks.

I remember being filled with anger and told him “I don’t care for your prejudice, sir.” Now I know that this is a bit of a self aggrandizing story because of my response and everything, it’s just the most recent example that I can think of.

Then you also have Schrodinger’s douchebag, who is similar to the guy filming me but he states his shitty opinions in joke form so that if he doesn’t get a laugh and people agreeing with him about his terrible thoughts, he can just say “it’s a joke, it’s not that serious”. God, I fucking hate when people do something terrible and tell you it’s just a joke. Like that absolves them of their responsibility.

What also really struck me about this, was that this reminded me of the flat earth documentary, Behind the Curve, which I had to stop watching because it was too sad. One of the interview subjects was talking about if he didn’t have flat earth, he wouldn’t have any of his friends and then he would have nothing.

This and the racist lady make me sad but then I think about it and I realize they’re just fucking lazy. Maybe I’m lucky but when people tell me that it’s hard to make friends in your later years, I think that they’re just not trying hard enough. I’m not talking about the people that have social anxiety and what not, it’s the people who don’t have that much of an issue but still don’t want to try. There are nearly 9 billion people on the planet. You can find a friend that’s not a racist or a flat earther.

I did it and I don’t have that much to offer. Maybe give it a shot before you go down either those other two alleys.

I would also suggest checking out more Boze videos. She’s very good at what she does.