Absolutely, I don’t understand when having nuanced conversations became so impossible. It’s particularly irritating and ironic to me that people who call themselves “activists” (and people who allege to be beyond the “binary”) have so much difficulty holding space for multiplicity— not even just at the rational level, but at a basic level of human compassion. The hatred and vitriol and entitlement is honestly frightening. And the truth is, a lot of Nazis felt they were very good people with a noble cause. Never in my years in leftist activist spaces did I comprehend how hypocritical and shortsighted and cruel those people could be. And I’m not letting that undermine my continued concern for issues pertaining to racism, sexism (or even my concern for the wellbeing of Palestinian people and their right to sovereignty and safety and dignity), but it certainly sheds an important light on a group of people who have pretended for too long that they are a voice of moral clarity in this country/culture.

The last few years have been very illuminating to me in that way; I would rather have a conversation with a moderate or right wing person than a smug leftist who wants me and my family dead before I’ve opened my mouth. That’s certainly not how I thought about things in 2016, and it saddens me to say that I was naive. You live and you learn, I guess. But it’s a shame