Maggie!

I was being facetious with the trick part lol but you know the joke "I might be racist, but you're mean and that's worse?" It's the root of that. We discussed it back when we read White Fragility. You can see it in Trump, Elon Musk, and your average Tumblr racist:

They really, REALLY want to be liked. Not just liked, no that's not the right word, but validated.

Think about it this way. Racism is the status quo; the default, right? Part of maintaining that default is through normalization, and that includes the solidarity necessary to reinforce that (DiAngelo called it white solidarity).

So, if being covertly racist is the status quo, then that means you will be socially rewarded for being so. When you get rewarded, people are nice, friendly, relatable, they keke and haha right alongside you. But when you confront someone's racism, you're not socially rewarding them anymore- the spigot of validation has been paused! Instead of taking it as a valid critique, you are seen as socially punishing a person. You're being MEAN, because the validation I got from everyone else's also-racism was NICE!

That's why when you confront racism, you HAVE to stand firm on it. You cannot feed into the desire for the validation of their behavior. That's what makes a lot of people snap. The blowup is meant to stop you, to force you back into compliance! The only one being punished really is you for bringing it up.

And hell, if not socially validating a bigot is punishment... 😐 Why would that be... A bad thing? We're not hitting you with rocks, we're just saying we don't fuck with you and your behavior. (But that's also a part of really all of the books we've read in #cbc book club so far; that antiracism is seen as violence.)

The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.

Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.

I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so go drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.

Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.

"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."

"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."

"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"

European glasses and sunglasses are made in the same Italian factories that make the luxury ones, they have the same quality control and warranty. You are paying €100 for a logo.

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Today we remember the 49 lives lost and countless others forever changed on June 12, 2016, at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. What was meant to be a night of joy, music, and pride became one of unimaginable tragedy.

We honor the memory of those we lost—most of them young, queer, and Latinx—and we stand with the survivors, the families, and the community still healing.