“The middle ground is not halfway between Nazis and antiracists. The reasonable position is not a compromise between rapists and feminists, slaveowners and abolitionists, Natives and General Crook. The truth is not midway between the liar and the truthteller. That has to be a factor in all those calls for reaching out and unity. The murderer and his intended victim don't have to agree on what's right. The people who were harmed don't have to reach out to those who did the harming. The people who told the truth don't need to make liars feel better about themselves or what they said. Those who were targeted by this war don't have to do all the peacemaking. Being gracious, issuing invitations -- sure for those who are up to it and see ways to do it constructively -- but not compromising or normalizing hate and discrimination and destruction. If reaching out and finding unity is good, the haters and liars can go find some olive branches and apologies and do the work to leave their will to destroy the rest of us behind.
Then it begins. The party of hate never had a mandate; they lost the popular vote last time and this time; they may think of themselves as the real Americans and the gatekeepers but we don't have to, and we don't have to enter their gates or play by their rules. We don't have to hate them either, but we don't have to protect them from the consequences of their choices or sell out our principles for their comfort. When you stand on the ground of truth and justice, let others find their way to you. If you stand firm, many will in the end. Not everyone will; that does not change what truth and justice are.”
~~ Rebecca Solnit - Writer, Historian, & Activist
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