It’s getting harder and harder for me to tell the racists apart from the anti-racists. Neither make or respond to arguments so much as stick you in a identity box and try to insist you stay there.
*an
Les extrêmes se touchent:
It’s worth dwelling a moment on the fact that the tweet that drew such disproportionate ad hominem vitriol from her was a tweet in support of *not destroying a statue of George Washington*. If you want to see how bad things can potentially get, I invite you to scan her TL.
Both racists and a certain kind of zealously ideological anti-racist (I don’t want to just surrender the term: I’m also against racism) hate for other people to think for themselves. You must think like them or you are either the enemy or an inauthentic member of their own group.
This is why all of this stupidity on twitter and actually taking the time to respond to it may actually matter. It’s sullying but necessary to publicly (not just in DMs) oppose this horrifically restrictive, authoritarian and dehumanizing mindset wherever it manifests.
I’ve gotten so many people writing me saying, essentially, “Wow, why would you signify that with a response?” I get it and appreciate it, but this moment does demand some responses and defenses of logic and reason over rage and pure reactionary feeling.
In-group enforcers like this try to make examples out of someone like me so that onlookers can see the potential cost of dissent. Which is why it’s all the more important to insist on thinking for yourself.
*dignify
Just read this very clear description of the phenomenon I was trying to get at here yesterday. Well worth your time if interested in these online group behaviors:
