For my first thread, a thought experiment on misogyny [View all]

[TeapotInATempest]

Imagine if you will that in this last election it was Barack Obama who ran for president and lost against Trump, that Keith Ellison was the DNC chair and that John Lewis was the House Minority Leader.

Now imagine that Obama was being told to go away and never show his face in public again or state an opinion, that Ellison was demonized beyond belief for the loss and told that he and Obama were entirely to blame for it, Russia and the Electoral College be damned.

Further, imagine during Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing that Cory Booker was silenced from reading Coretta Scott King’s letter and reprimanded, though white senators were allowed to finish reading it; and then told by McCain and Burr to stop harassing Jeff Sessions during his last hearing though his white colleagues were allowed to ask questions that were just as pointed.

Finally, imagine that after losing narrowly in a special election in a district so red that Newt Gingrich once held it and that has not gone blue since the 70s, that John Lewis was being told it was his fault and he needed to step down and go off to die somewhere. And that all the names being floated to replace him belonged to white Congressmen.

Would you not start to wonder – not for one moment – if there was any racism involved? Could you empathize at all with African Americans who did? Would you listen and try to understand why they felt that way or would you shut them down and tell them it was all “identity politics”?

If you answered “no” to the above questions, you might just have some unconscious biases.