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To be 100% clear: I didn't say that you must cut off family.

I specifically said the opposite: that it's OK not to fight. I said that I get it that some people don't want to cut their Trumpy relatives off because that is really, really hard. I also said that leaving a toxic family can be a good choice.

What I did say, is that if you aren't willing to do those hard things, don't you dare fix your fingers to hop online and blame Black people for anything.

hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/113

1/N

I specifically gave the positive example of Jesse Watters' mom, who clearly didn't cut her son off. But he's not invited to Thanksgiving. She's not playing the "Just don't talk politics!" game that so many people play at Thanksgiving, so that they don't have to reckon with who's a hateful bigot.

I'm also pretty sure that Jesse Watters' mom isn't making excuses for her son, or cursing out Black men online like I got cursed out on this website before the election.

2/N

I had a friend in college who invited me to Thanksgiving. I said yes. She gave me a heads up that her grandma was "super old and from a different time, so she might say something racist." So I told her "Then heads up, your granny might be getting cursed out over the mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce." 🤷🏿‍♂️

She was shocked, and asked if I was serious, and couldn't I just, y'know, ignore it? It's Thanksgiving!

I told her KYP (Know Your Personnel). You should've known that won't work with me.

3/N

jeraldina:python_logo:☁️

@mekkaokereke this specific framing helped me understand the deeper ties of power structures within all of this.

As in, as a participant, one inhabits the power structure that those above you enforce, which means your defaults are necessarily skewed. You can hold your own values, but then excuse familial behavior because of closeness to power. Bc it's obvious, but it's unstated, which makes it insidious. You are required to disbelieve its existence. So you have to rationalize everything.