People in my circles are quite suspicious of me now due to my inability to be quiet.
It feels dumb to talk about and it's hard to even really find the words to what I want to say but I find it difficuilt to keep quiet sometimes, especially when someone says something very dumb about something I've been putting a lot of time into studying. There have been a couple times now where someone has said something dreadful about Palestinians and I've had to reprimand them. It's hard to keep quiet about things like this while also not going too far. Sometimes simply saying that you don't hate Chinese people for no reason at all is enough to make some people around you suspicious. One time someone raised their eyebrow just because I said I'd love to visit China some day. When someone for example makes a comment about Cuba that's clearly just wrong, I try to nudge them in the right direction subtly but it turns out not subtle enough. I need to learn to be quiet sometimes but even if I do stay quiet that also looks suspicious! I guess the only thing left to do is pretend to be a lib but it feels .. wrong. It feels like I'm encouraging those beliefs to the people around me. I think I just need to chill and let things be but it's hard sometimes. I try to surround myself with cool people but that's not always possible. It feels dumb to talk about but it's been bothering me a lot lately. Have any of you ever felt like this?
Edit: Thank you all for the great advice! Sorry about my unorganized rambiling, I was a bit tired when I wrote this. The replies are very helpful and have given me a lot to think about. Thanks again :)
Edit 2: I've thought a lot more about how I felt and how to best articulate things but first I want to quickly clarify that I would never be quiet or tolerate any kind of vile hatred aimed towards Palestinians or any marginalised and attacked people. Ever. I think over time people started getting upset with me and saying that I was an extremist, radical and other flavours of red for voicing my opinions or just getting suspicious of the things I've said over time. Sometimes even smalI things like just not hating China was enough to confuse some people and it started to weigh down on me.
I thought I'd have to cool it off and stop being so vocal on some things due to the backlash I had been facing but after reflection I realized that my words have actually made a difference and have actually pushed people further left on issues that they nornally would not have been. Even with small things like just humanising Chinese people. Some people are just vile and cannot be reasoned with but others can be talked to. I suppose after awhile it starts to wear down on you and get at you. But I've taken the advice given to me here to heart and I'll best to continue with what I'm doing. Once more thank you for the advice I'll try my best!
PS: Sorry for the edits I'm not used to forums I hope it doesn't disturb anything :]
I try to pick my battles, though I'm not sure how helpful that is as advice because it comes down to a personal judgment call. But basically, I know I'm not going to be changing everybody in a conversation and I know that sometimes it's more important to maintain a relationship with someone than get righteous on them. That said, there are times I've said something with passion just because it was hard not to. Anyone denying the genocide going on in Palestine or trying to make it both sides is one where it's hard for me to not say anything.
I would also like to mention, you gave an example with China. If you say you'd like to visit China some day and people say something weird, turn it around on them. Like they say: "Why would you want to visit China?" You can be like: "I'm confused, do you have a problem with wanting to visit other countries?" You don't need to get into depth on China politics for a thing like that, you can just make it about simple tourism and travel, and if they're going to be weird about it, make them be the one to go there. Maybe they just genuinely haven't thought about it as a travel destination or maybe they're racist. They might end up saying something racist if prodded on it and then you can push back on the racism, which even liberals may side with you on. The goal here is not to "trick" them exactly, just to keep things in perspective because some of that stuff is downright ridiculous and you don't even need to be a communist to see how absurd it is. A lot of liberals are people who would like to think they are decent, empathic people who care about others, so keep that in mind when considering rhetoric of things. Some of the stuff with communism and their hatred of it is basically just they believe lies they've been told that it's always horribly evil in practice. You probably won't convince them otherwise easily, but you can still work with the fact that their beliefs are coming from a place of wanting to be empathic. Compared to like, some people just have a very warped sense of right and wrong, believe in survival of the fittest type stuff, and you're probably more so wasting energy trying to move them via conversation alone.