hate is hate. this article illustrates how administrative and systemic ignorance to the infusion of hate into an environment will lead almost inevitably to escalating violence. I see many correlations between the issues of racism this article focuses on and the issues of misogyny that surround violence against women.

of the important points to note, the first is the perspective of the privileged school board. "Our town is not a bunch of bigots. They're Christian, law-abiding citizens that wouldn't mistreat anybody." this is a *crucial* sentiment to learn to address: when someone completely oblivious to their privilege says, "sure, it was a problem in the past. sure, [insert group here] may get the short end of the stick sometime. but, *we're not bigots.*"

tempting as it may be, an effective reply is NOT "sweet merciful crap, how can you fucking say that with a straight face?!" rather consider the following tenets:

- that you yourself have not had to deal with a particular problem does not prove that problem doesn't exist for others.

- people obviously don't always experience the same things or even things in a similar way. if you don't have a foundation for a particular experience (ie. racial or gender prejudice), why wouldn't you listen to those who do have a foundation? (note: do NOT punctuate this sentence with "are you a fucking idiot?")

I guess the major thing to recognize is that their response is typically one born of defensiveness. when they say "we're not bigots | rapist | misogynists | etc." generally, what they mean to say is "we're not bad people" or more succinctly "we're not evil." to a certain degree, it may be helpful to separate the person from the act: you don't have to be a bad person to do incredibly bad things.