I have repeatedly read comments such as “Racism has never been worse than it is today!” Really? It’s worse today than it was in 1840? In 1953? In 1960? Comments like these constitute ignorance expressing itself. History is not making shit up. Let’s get our facts correct before opining.
This is my particular bete noir. I use the term baseline. Mine is segregated everything, blacks unable to testify or serve on juries, fire hoses, nightsticks, dogs, finding a lynched man in the woods at about the age of ten or eleven. Hospitals unwilling to treat black patients. Today’s baseline is microaggression and safe spaces.
I’m told by some marginalized people that I don’t care about their rights because I’m not standing on the sidewalk berating pedestrians about their privilege, oppression and violence. This last is galling. Silence is violence. Failing to admit to being an oppressor is violence. Bullshit. Violence is violence. If you haven’t been beaten, knocked down with a fire hose, spit upon, had dogs unleashed on you, don’t tell me what violence is.