We Can’t Be Nice About Any Of This Anymore

Lately it seems like I’ve been on a bit of a tear, as they say.  There’s been some status messages, and even a short video, all coming back to the core idea we’ve got to stop explaining basic things to people who completely understand them but pretend not to because the pretense allows them to continue engaging in unacceptable behavior.

I don’t mean to ever discourage reading or genuine intellectual curiosity.  I absolutely believe that understanding what the facts are is critically important, and that of necessity that means understanding what a fact is, is pretty important too. 

I’m just over the constant going back and forth with people who act like they don’t get it.

It sucks up too much energy.

Explaining why black lives matter and what that phrase means when it’s been under public discussion since 2013 is waste of time, as is arguing back and forth over what groups where and why “own” what “interest” in whatever related commercial trademarks there may be and how they’re used and why.  First and foremost the conversation must begin with the basic understanding that black lives matter.  Full stop.  Anything beyond that is nonsense and argument, because anything beyond that means on some level and to some degree you are willing enough to compromise that basic idea to bother arguing about it.

Same thing with explaining why Confederate statues don’t have any place in the United States, same thing with explaining people why they should wear a mask in the midst of an ongoing deadly pandemic, on and on. We just expend so much time and energy on people not to educate them but to chip away at the idea that their position has some social acceptability, that we can’t ever move forward because these sandbaggers keep siphoning all our energy into just not going backwards any faster.