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I've had to explain to more people this week that Columbus was one of the shittiest humans to ever live more times than I ever though I would in my life.
Isn't this shit amazing? Every Columbus Day that shit is aaaaallllll over the place. It's incredible to imagine ignorance on the subject still being possible at this point, yet so many somehow manage it.
And I don't think it's because they haven't been exposed to the truth. It seems to me like most people are just conditioned to only absorb information in specific ways. Watching everyone react to the protests has me dwelling on this a bit lately. Like... I've been paying attention to the issue of police violence for about 20 years, and have always talked about it all the goddamn time. If you are real life friend or family to me, you have heard me talk about police brutality multiple times - guaranteed. Yet my parents and siblings are acting lately like they're hearing about this stuff for the first time in their lives because of these protests. Like every ridiculous thing the police have done in the past 3 weeks is the first time they've ever heard of police ever doing such a thing. My mom watched the recent John Oliver episode on Police, and talked about how it was so eye opening for her and she finally understood. And internally I was screaming "
I was reiterating those exact same facts to you 2 days ago", when she referenced some specific bits from the show.
It's so goddamn frustrating. Trying all these fucking years to get people to care about things, and eyes just glaze over.
And you know what's different now?.... Trump, and the non-Fox News personal obsession with him.
Everyone's response to what's going on is "I blame Trump. It wasn't like this until he took office. We can't survive another 4 years of him."
And I'm like... did no one I know ever hear a single word I said before 2016? And I'm not trying to be pretentious here and make it about me. I know many others struggle with this same thing and get frustrated with it.
No one gives a shit about anything it feels like until either it personally effects them, or until the mainstream media shoves it in their faces and tells them who is the villain to blame. There's nothing more depressing and disempowering to me.