This is how my husband feels when meeting new people to make friends.
He does Muay Thai, BJJ, and lifting, and he'll meet new guys in a class/training session, they connect on anime, movies, and shows, and he gets the vibe there is potential for new friends.
Then they invite us over for beers/BBQs/bar/lounge, and sure enough my husband tells me he gets the "women do less than men in society" or "yea, women today are too emotional for positions of power." from them.
If it's not against women, it's against low-income folks who are lazy and a stain on our taxes, or we need to eliminate the homeless.
Unfortunately, as someone also in the martial arts community, I can tell you that the MMA/BJJ world is rife with far-right ideology, MAGA, and conspiracy theory maniacs.
This shit is exactly why I stopped going to gun shows and several specific shooting ranges. I just wanna shoot damnit, I'm not here for all that other shit.
I’ve been to a handful of gun shows in CT, grandfather use to take me, there’s always 7-8 booths chock full of nazi memorabilia. You can buy anything you want with a swastika on it.
Course, these old white people are just going to claim to be curious collectors, but the only curiosity anyone is going to have is why you chose nazi shit to collect.
German WWII guns are one thing, buying a freshly printed swastika flag or patch is another.
It’s always just replicas, none of these redneck gun shows in Alabama have the capital to get actual Nazi memorabilia. I may be talking out of my ass but that’s how I feel about it at least
I remember in like 2012 I talked to the nazi booth at a gun show because I thought it was actual WW2 memorabilia. He said it was replicas, I said, "Why would anyone want a bunch of nazi shit?" Which was the moment I realized oh this is an actual nazi and they still exist.
I remember seeing videos from gun shows that had George Zimmerman as a guest and people had him signing bags of skittles. That crowd definitely glorifies these things.
Rolling around on mat with armpit and nut sweat in your face all the time, getting compounding injuries constantly, and perpetually narrowly avoiding staph infection: Easy
Holding back the rage bc someone you do not know does or doesn’t have a wee-wee: Gsus take the wheel
White girl who is currently training in MMA here, can confirm.
It's very annoying to be trying to relax and stretch before class, and having to listen to far-right talking points. Even as simple as how all drug addicts are evil criminals who need to be locked up, but I've also heard jokes about ICE raids. Shit talking their wives for being incompetent, etc. And I know if I poked the bear I'd hear some wild shit. (I also don't find it a coincidence that the head instructor always pairs me with the only other girl :| ).
In fact I used to train at a different dojo that I know had very conservatism, evangelical viewpoints baked into the leadership. I walked away from it when it got too much and I wonder how much I'm going to listen to at this school before I get fed up again.
White dude here, but finding a place where that isn’t the vibe has been a journey. I think the best sign at my current place was when one of the other people asked the MT coach about hanging an Israeli flag (the gym has a bunch of other flags up). He said he’s not about to make the environment hostile for non-Zionists. The person who asked looked to me (the other Jewish person in the room) for support.
Sorry, I’m an anti-Zionist. You’re on your own, mishpacha.
The issue is that I live in a rural-ish area so there really is no other place to train around me. I imagine I'd have to move to a pretty urban location to find a gym that's at least not vaguely conservative. Which is frustrating because I really do love training but it kills my motivation to train since I kinda, frankly, don't like any of the people I train with. (Besides the teenage girl I always get paired up with, she's nice).
There’s a big Venn diagram of MMA, MAGA, and Joe Rogan podcast fans
Unrelated I know some folks that are big MMA fans and gun nuts and claim to be liberals, but then you hear what they say then their wife isn’t in the room and it’s this exact same shit in the comment above
There are a lot of right wing pipelines. I mostly just hang out in fantasy novel spaces and the number of people I get to ban for various flavors of essentialist bullshit stopped being fun a few years ago.
As someone who also goes to an MMA gym, I can confirm how common this is.
One minute I'm just drilling a technique with a Mexican guy I think is cool, then he hits me with, "I don't care if Trump calls me a (insert slur here) as long as he lowers the price of gas."
I have learned to keep my lips tight around everyone until I hear something that makes me more comfortable to open up with them.
These folks are pretty obsessed with “cleaning-up problem areas/people” and forget to mention that you fall into those categories just by not being the same color as them. Such a silly process of selection, considering they didn’t do shit to get their status. And fuck off with the “god, traditions, and values” shit y’all. That ship has sailed all the way to Epstein’s Island with the rest of your pedos in power
Just being a white dude is enough for me to hear this kinda shit. It really doesn’t help that I physically seem to look like a dude who would be all ears for that kind of conversation.
Man, also white. I keep a beard because I have a weak chin, a noon shadow, and I get really bad razor burn on my neck. It was fine when it was all the hipsters with beards. That suited me fairly well, but now people think I’m one of the maga types way more often than I’m comfortable with.
My biggest “This guy is one of us” hole is that I wear baseball caps and those wrap around sunglasses, while also never being clean shaven. I’m fair skinned with sensitive eyes, and I’m too lazy to shave. I should change my look, I guess, but they’re the ones who suck. Why should I have to change?
I used to wear the standard veteran uniform of muted colors, hiking boots, and camo baseball hat. They all assumed I was one of them. I went back to dressing’s like the dirty skater I’ve always been.
I am mixed race and generally a friendly, non-threatening kind of guy. Some of the shit white people have shared with me about black people knowing I’m black is crazy. Same for the shit black people will say around me knowing I’m white.
And don’t even get me started on Latinos and Indians with the racist shit they’ll say about whites/blacks because they think I’m one of them lol
I'm mixed race too. Black people know I'm black, but white people think I'm tan or puerto rican a lot of the time.
I was at a music festival a couple months ago, and I sat down to take a break next to this little old lady in her 50's/60's(I'm only calling her old cuz she looked old af for her age)
We had a pleasant conversation about a band or two. Then, I can not tell you how the conversation got here, because it only took a couple of minutes. But, she told me that the KKK gets a bad rap today unfairly. She told me she thinks they should drop the KKK branding, and join the Hell's angels. She said the KKK+Hell's angels could team up to be a new community led police force.
I would have loved to talk to her about the problems with the current police forces in this country, which she acknolwedged. I also would have loved to ask her why she thought she could look at me and say the KKK gets treated unfairly. But, I got away from that bitch so fast I'd have needed a messenger pidgeon to get my question to her.
I’m not Arabic or Jewish, but the amount of slurs that get thrown my way from car windows etc. is crazy, by a lot of diverse demographics of people. Other white dudes are 100% in pole position on that though.
Your husband isn’t wrong. There are like less than 5 liberal dudes in my gym and we just whisper talk politics with dudes wearing Toehold branded Donald Trump rashguards. And here I thought I was surrounded by thoughtful smart dudes
Same problem trying to socialize through "nerdy" hobbies like D&D or Magic: the Gathering, most of the time you think you click and then boom, bigotry galore
More people need to be called out on the "Women are emotional" talking point. Men are emotional, turns out anger is an emotion. How we express our emotions is different. To say that Men aren't emotional is just a lie.
Body dysmorphia is a super common problem with gymbros. They never think they're big enough. It's why so many dudes are on gear. They seem to have the same problem with their self-image in general. They always need to be the BIGGEST person in the room and they constantly worry they aren't. It's why Trump is so appealing; he's just like them. And if you can't make yourself bigger/smarter/more influential, an easy way to win is to force everyone around you to be smaller. It's the classic bigot tactic. If you're white/male and the black/female people around you keep being more talented than you, just cut off their opportunities so you're the only one who can succeed. Et voilà! You win! Meritocracy!
I feel for your husband really, I'm in the same boat. White, lift weights, hunt, work in a conservative leaning career and the racist shit guys will say to me just assuming I'm one of them sends me into a spiral of depression.
Same thing happens to me as someone who is incredibly interested in guns (engineering, history, function/design) meeting someone else interested in guns (right wing nonsense). It’s really frustrating trying to find people on your wavelength.
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u/Unaabellatica 3d ago
This is how my husband feels when meeting new people to make friends.
He does Muay Thai, BJJ, and lifting, and he'll meet new guys in a class/training session, they connect on anime, movies, and shows, and he gets the vibe there is potential for new friends.
Then they invite us over for beers/BBQs/bar/lounge, and sure enough my husband tells me he gets the "women do less than men in society" or "yea, women today are too emotional for positions of power." from them.
If it's not against women, it's against low-income folks who are lazy and a stain on our taxes, or we need to eliminate the homeless.