This'll be a long one, so buckle up.

So I'm already seeing emotional manipulation in a number of comments my friends are receiving. Here's a list of what I've seen, and why you should NOT let it shame you into ignoring what you've been feeling for the last 4 years:

1. "Show some decency! I thought the left was supposed to be the beacon for kindness!" - Remind them that they supported a man, one of whose platforms was "fuck your feelings." Now they know how it feels.

2. "TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT!" - Oh, I'm sorry. Are we also trying to start a registry of Trump supporters, working on deporting White people, driving past them, bear macing them and threatening them with guns? No? Then it's not two wrongs.

3. "You don't know the hearts of these people! They’re good people!" - These same people didn't know the hearts of Jacob Blake, Ahmad Arbery, George Floyd, or any of the 164 Black people killed by police this past year, but they were sure OK with pretending they did.

They were OK with turning their noses up at marches and believing that the 2% who caused any property damage were representative so that they could whine about how we were "losing our message." They didn't care about our hearts then.

Nor did they care about the hearts of the children in cages or the DREAMERS they salivated over deporting. At the very least, they were indifferent. Hearts don't suddenly matter when it's a White one that's beating. That's not how this works.

Anyway.

4. "Oh, here goes the TOLERANT LEFT" - Introduce to them Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance. (here's an article that mentions it: https://cultmtl.com/2017/08/hate-haters/) TL;DR is that in order to continue tolerance, you must be intolerant of INtolerance for a healthy, educated society.

5. "I thought you cared about justice. THIS ELECTION WAS FRAUD." - Was it? Was it really? Where's the proof? Without proof, do you know what I see? I see a dude who lost the popular vote hard in 2016 and only won the office thanks to a faithless electorate or two.

I see that this time, people spoke even louder by voting in droves so that he lost the popular vote a 2nd time by MORE. I also see a bunch of people who are pissy because they thought they had an election cinched, so now it must be fraud.

But just as you want endless proof of racism, the unfairness of Black deaths, 26 sexual assaults, etc, give us the proof of fraud or STFU.

6. "We'll never come together this way! If you aren't nicer, how are we supposed to work through this?" - If you're truly worried about unity and not about your feelings getting hurt, apologize. REAL apologies.

Admit that you were so blinded by concern for your own issues that you never thought that we might actually be telling the truth. Admit that we shouldn't have been afraid to wake up every day for 4 years so that YOU might see a little more money in your pockets.

Admit that you didn't listen out of self interest. Then apologize wholeheartedly. If you're not willing to say you're sorry to those you've wronged, you're just salty. And salt is delicious.

Short and short is, don't let people gaslight you into feeling bad for not extending an olive branch. As it would be with an abuser or a rapist, they aren't ENTITLED to your kindness.

Hang in there. We can heal from this eventually, but not by swallowing down our own abuse. Make sure you get that straight so that you can set THEM straight.

Thank you and goodnight.