I honestly don’t think it’s unfair to react that way, and I don’t think we can reasonably ask members of vulnerable groups to respond with patience when respectability is so obviously not relevant to the people who wish us harm – even if just passively. As patient as I may be here, I have this outlook not out of sympathy for the groups that support the Democratic Party, but due to the practicality in empathizing with other subjects of this oppressive system in order to discern between active and passive threats.

Apathy is the engine of liberal oppression, which is why privileged groups like middle-class working people can be placated by so little when their own way of life is both precarious and compartmentalized from the violence this system requires to exist. Liberals use social justice rhetoric the same way they used labor and suffrage rhetoric; it works because most people are indeed uncomfortable with human suffering, but do not have the perspective or political literacy to understand when that suffering is arbitrary or what is actually required to end that suffering. I don’t think it is unreasonable to be frustrated or angry at people who do not develop that understanding at a point in time where so much information is literally at their fingertips, and I couldn’t in good conscience say that I don’t habour a deep resentment for people who can’t be bothered to try. Of course, I extend more sympathy to factory workers who work 50+ hour swing-shifts while raising children than I do white-collar suburbanites who feel entitled to define morality around the profitability of their rental properties.

Another form of violence inflicted on vulnerable groups is the expectation of respectability or candor as they defend themselves, as though that is required by anyone who argues that their privilege should exist. If you feel uncomfortable with that anger, that’s also completely valid since, again, most people don’t like hating others. It does feel gross, even when it’s warranted.