Now. Knowing that— admitting it and accepting it: Will you stop making excuses for them, stop looking for the "rational" reason? And just do what it takes to make sure that these people and their hateful bigoted values don't succeed?
A lot of people are racist, hateful, bigoted, and these figureheads give them permission to be their worst selves. That's really the long and the short of it.
I absolutely agree, but I do think there are institutional reasons there are so many of these terrible ppl. As someone working in academia, I think the shift from seeing education as a public good to a luxury commodity played an important role-especially when you look at how it impacts voting.
Those aren't mutually exclusive things. Being bound up within the systems of white supremacy and other bigotries can very easily lead those who profit from those systems, even unawares, to violently defend those systems.
Oh a change in values and behaviour is ALWAYS possible, right up until the moment someone can't intentionally change anything about themselves ever again. But that doesn't mean we stop fighting against the harm they do, EVEN WHILE we hope and maybe even work toward their change.
