1.) Well, I'm gonna assume your father and grandfather had time to process and had gotten support from others by the time they got to you, right? That makes all the difference. That's the difference between 16-year-old me and 28-year-old me. But sometimes, we have to deal with people who are more like 16-year-old me, and that's when this stuff is important to think about.
2.)The statement of fact, or "not all ___" is an issue because that is understandably seen as a warning sign of someone who won't be supportive. And for someone in crisis, that risk is too dangerous to take. That's a line we've heard many times before from people who only cared about their ego. Maybe you're the exception, but why would I take that risk?
3.)The best thing to do when someone is distrustful or negative towards a group is start out with asking WHY they think that. Then you know whether you're dealing with a person who just reads a lot of conspiracy theories, or someone who's just mad about society changing... or someone who is in the middle of an on-going social crisis where they are profoundly unsafe and have experienced violence.
4.) All three of those things call for different conversations.
5.) But if you figure out that you're dealing with the last type, then the best thing to do is just let go of the "not all __" thing, and just show them. If they see that you are only concerned about their safety, and your ego is on some other planet and you don't care about that, then you are showing them that not all people like you are bad. And that is going to stay with them. The next time they meet someone like you, they'll be that little bit more open.
6.) Just acknowledge and offer help. Nothing else.
7.) Eventually you get to me in my late teens, winding up with an Episcopalian boyfriend and going to a church for the first time since my grandmother took me as a little kid, because I wanted to see him in the choir. I was literally shaking. I was terrified they'd notice that I obviously didn't really know the routine. I'd actually been attacked again at school just earlier that week for defending a Jewish friend.
8.)Nothing happened. Everyone was very nice to me. While I was there, I learned that some of the Episcopal church had just started allowing LGBT clergy.
It took over a year of dating for me to trust him enough to set foot in his church. But I did. And nothing happened. Except that I learned some Christians don't mind outsiders visiting, and were starting to accept the LGBT.
9.) He never bothered to tell me "not all Christians." He went to that school too, and he damn well knew what I went through, and that the people I was taking blows for went through even worse.
He just showed me, and his church showed me. And it took a very long time. But as long as he didn't make it about his ego, that was a risk I could take.
10.)No, people in trauma are not always reasonable. Hell, it seems silly to me now that I was literally on the edge of a panic attack walking into a church. But I have to remember what 18-year-old me had been through, and then it doesn't seem so ridiculous. It seems understandable.
11.)We need to meet them where they are. We can't help them gain a more reasonable perspective until we end their crisis. No human in crisis is reasonable. They are simply surviving as best they know how: by taking as few risks as possible. That's reasonable, with the level of violence they face. The perspective that the rest of us think is reasonable is based on the fact that we are mostly safe. They're not, and they don't think the same way.
12.) They are going to take your actions more seriously than any statement you could ever make.
