You know what's interesting?

I see the exact same real people in the comments on a lot of mutuals' social media, saying exactly the same racist rhetoric like "those thugs" and "riots never solved anything" and "well they lost my support with this."

And...

Over and over, I see kindly, well-meaning white friends of mine saying "Respectfully, I disagree" and engaging with those people.

It's easy to dismiss them as either bots or trolls, but they are neither.

They are the real friends and colleagues and relatives of my friends.

And, I just want to let those friends know:

If you're engaging with them, it's a waste of the time you're spending trying to get them to think about this or change their minds.

They are propagandized. You can't break that saying "respectfully, I disagree."

This is a rhetorical game they're taught to play when they're radicalized, which they likely don't even grasp that they have been.

This is how they make contact with other radicalized right wing folks on social media. This is how they get their word out there to your audiences.

This is how they demoralize you and passive-aggressively manipulate you into giving them space -- YOUR space -- to share their propaganda, and then act like they're being victimized if someone tells them they can't do that.

It's tempting to believe otherwise, to imagine they can be reached, and I'm here to tell you, that's part of the white supremacist playbook, and it works on all of us. It worked on ME when I lived in a recent KKK town and sent my kid to a school full of overt racists.

This doesn't mean don't respond to them, not at all -- but it means rethink, and reframe, how you're responding.

If you are conflict averse -- and see my prior threads on how that is being used to manipulate you on this -- you can simply say "Okay, we're done here," and either

..remove the comment, unfriend, block, or else explain that you simply won't tolerate that propaganda.

If you want to send a clear message to your audiences that you don't tolerate that crap, use stronger words. I promise you there are folks reading your social media who...

...will be heartened and cheered by you doing so, and will take your example and stand up to the propaganda themselves. There are also probably marginalized people reading who'll now distrust you less.

But, it's time to pick a side. Past time.

If you don't pick a side, if you feel you can't, well, that's up to you.

But you should remember history, and the many activists like Elie Wiesel, who said that neutrality never favors the oppressed.

How do you want to be remembered?