Nicole Chardenet
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

So white people are collectively responsible for our violent reactionaries? I very much agree with you, but I wonder, Erynn, if you’ll hold others to the same high standard. Because whenever we try to get Muslims to collectively address their terrorism problem, or men to deal with their propensity to violence and sexual abuse, we’re told “They/we aren’t ALL like that! Stop stigmatizing ALL of us! Why am *I* responsible for things others did?” You find this attitude among a lot of the gun crazies in the US too…they refuse to accept responsibility for the nutbags whose ‘right’ to own a gun they otherwise defend so vehemently. Then want nothing to do with them when they gun down a kindergarten.

You’re right that part of the reason we’ve got this ugly festering mess is that people didn’t listen. The hate you see today is fueled by some decent, honest people who had very real and valid concerns about Islamic terrorism, overweening feminist victimism, just who was being allowed to immigrate into the country, and whether blacks were doing as much to help themselves as they might. (Like it or not, blacks are far more likely to die by the hands and guns of their own than they are by whites, cops or not. Which is pretty much the same for everyone. We’re always best at killing our own kind. Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s address the cultural value in some black corners that doing well in school and aspiring to get a decent job is ‘acting white’.)

The worst left-wing bigotry is the Bigotry of Low Expectations.

Y’all didn’t want to talk about any of these things. You wanted to shout people down and call them racist, misogynist, Islamophobic, and xenophobic for asking real questions about other groups of people and their values, questions that needed to be asked by white people along with everyone else. So as you rightfully excoriate white people for letting this shit happen, Erynn, I hope you’re asking yourself how *you* contributed to Charlottesville. Because we on the Left have contributed because we *wouldn’t fucking listen*.

You can’t expect just white people to confront and challenge our own. You have to demand the same of everyone else. Otherwise nothing will change.

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    Nicole Chardenet

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    Blogger, author, egalitarian, into brains & Buddhist psychology, living in the Murky Middle of political/social thought. Too strong & empowered to be a feminist