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I'll reserve my pity for those more deserving.
My pity isn't just for them, but for the families destroyed by the rhetoric and the love lost between people.
People are so divided now on everything, everyone's caught up in trying to apply labels to themselves so they can be further divided into categories and discriminated against.
I'm really tired of the labels. Republican, Democrat, Right Wing, Left Wing, Fascist, Socialist, blah blah blah... these labels just help external influencers drive that wedge a little better.
Can't we all just be human and start to talk to one another? I think we'll find we have more in common than not. The only way to bring people over to your side is to befriend them, and slowly work on it. The fighting just causes everyone to dig their heels in so much more.
What nonsense is this?
The labels aren’t just meaningless words, they represent the views of a person.
No one wants to just get along with the *phobe *ist who wants to strip away people’s basic human rights.
you right they're not meaningless.
In the hands of the right demagogue they can be powerful tools for creating and extending stimgatisation and division - and undermining society and weakening the grown-up methods of resolving social stresses.
Daryl Davis arguably did try to get along with the kkk.
There might not be many like him and it might be a drop in the ocean, but at least it isn't no-one who wants to try to do the difficult thing.
They are meaningless words, because the views of a person are far more nuanced than that. But by labeling yourself as something, people immediately get to start assuming what your views are before getting to hear them from you instead. That's the big problem with society today - everyone wants to be something unique, because we're all so connected now that nobody feels like they stand out. But by adding labels to yourself, you just paint a target on your back for people to aim for, because with that brand new label, people get to make assumptions more easily. You get to be divided off from the "rest" of society, and put in a special bucket and targeted.
No one single word can represent someone’s entire world view. It’s simply not possible.
And yet, one single word can be enough to describe a person who is not worth wasting time on.
If you tell me women shouldn't be allowed to have abortions, I'm going to call you a misogynist and ignore you.
If you tell me that your god demands I act a certain way, I'm going to call you a zealot and ignore you.
If you tell me that eating horse paste is a cure for a fucking virus, I'm going to call you an antivaxxer and ignore you.
If you tell me Ukraine should surrender to Russia, I'm going to call you a Putin apologist and ignore you.
If you tell me trickle-down economics works, I'm going to call you a fool and ignore you.
If you tell me that mankind isn't causing the Earth to warm and that won't be bad for us, I'm going to call you a science denier and ignore you.
Hitler liked dogs, too. That doesn't excuse the rest of the evil shit he did or mean we should have a talk about the merits of Nazism. Likewise, Republicans are a willfully ignorant, evil party. I don't need to know how much of that party one disagrees with; the mere fact that one agrees with any of it means one should be ignored. I don't need to know their entire worldview; the GOP platform is egregious enough that agreeing with any of it makes Republicans terrible people.
I don't want to befriend someone who thinks my other friends are child molesters and should actually die. I get the impulse to say we should seek friendship and common ground, and I do where possible, but I just can't with people who don't see people I care about as even being people.
And that's not a hypothetical, that's actual "I have talked with these people" decisions.
This is kind of blaming the victim: you think black or queer people did something other than existing to egg on hatred? True, some go out of their way to try to befriend KKK members and such, but that strategy has only makes a tiny dent on things. Once someone is pouring gasoline on your lawn in a cross, it's a bit too late to make friends.
I'm happy to work with and listen to people capable of basic human compassion, but my patience for those who seek only to hurt the less fortunate and the marginalized has reached its limit.