since I was 10. I grew up in a KKK environment so I've always been acutely aware of how prevalent racism and bigotry are, unlike too many white people who thought it had largely disappeared. Then Obama came onto the scene and they watched in horror as the ugliness started to come out into the open all over again.

I used to think that, somehow, employing compassion and empathy was the approach, but I was rather stunned to learn how many churches actually teach that compassion and empathy are sins. MAGA Christians actually hate Jesus, truth be told.

So I chose shunning. No, shame doesn't work. But removing such hate as much as possible has been my approach, after trying for decades to reach people.

I wish we knew how prevalent hardcore racism is; my guess is definitely no less than one-third of the country. More if anti-Black racism is the focus.

Maybe we have to start with other isms and work our way toward that original sin. Classism is the one that most of us can unite behind. It won't solve racism and bigotry but maybe it can be the first domino in a long list of Othering.

that's why we fucking DESPISE them

The point of the legislation was not to change people's minds, it was to protect the lives of the innocent ad establish justice under the law. Erosion of those protections happens when white allies compromise with the white supremacists.

"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice."

Martin Luther King Jr.

it's difficult to reduce it.