I remember feeling genuinely hopeful that we seemed ready for a real reckoning with systemic racism and our deeply racist history in the summer of 2020, and bigots have spent every single day since finding new and depressing ways to say "Absolutely fucking not"

It's the backlash. I keep telling myself this. It's the inevitable reaction to real progress, from the people who don't want progress and see it happening anyway, and the right response to it is to /keep going/.

I think the presidency of Barack Obama shook these people to their core, and then when gay people were *gasp* actually allowed to marry who they love, it sent them over the edge into repression mode. I will never understand that viewpoint, but I truly think that's what did it. 🙁

The only real answer to this is to overwhelm the bigots with reality: most of society wants to progress. Keep the pressure on and leave these fuckers in the dust.