I never post this kind of thing but DAMN I'm depressed.

[Jamastiene]

89. They can try to legislate white supremacy and other types of bigotry,

but they cannot change our minds. Those of us who are against the bigotry will stay against bigotry. We will fight as long as we can and new generations will fight en masse as time goes on.

It's a never-ending fight. The overall war is never "won." It's just battle after battle after battle, back and forth, forever. That is what I have figured out so far about civil rights and human society in general. It's not about age or any of the other things people think it is about. Bigots don't "die off." New generations become bigots too. That one is one of the worst ones that people believe. It always irritates me. My grandmother was against bigotry against POC and gay people way back in the 1980s before she died in her 80s. Age doesn't determine whether a person is bigoted or not. Their ideology does.

It is about who is on the latest bigotry bandwagon. The people on the latest bigotry bandwagon will eventually get chewed up and spit out by the people they thought were their friends and things will shift the other way for a while, only to shift back later after that. Back and forth forever. I'm sad that it is that way, but it is.

Knowing that, pick your battles and take care of yourself is the best advice.

Take a break if you need to. It can be incredibly disheartening, but it is a long haul fight.

I'm still trapped in the red south in one of the worst counties imaginable. Walmart is our major employer here other than the medical facilities. I certainly can't afford to go to college to become a doctor and I'm disabled anyhow. I refuse to let them win. I know I am a good person and try my best to treat others with kindness until they give me reason not to. Even in that case, I tend to just avoid them if they are unkind.

Numerous people in my hometown heard about me being raped for being a lesbian and made it their mission to meet me to tell me God hates me, I'm going to Hell, and I should get raped over and over until I submit to their hateful version of God and learn to like it. I know I don't deserve that. I now tell them, After them. They need to show me by example and "learn to like it." I tell them that now with no regrets or shame.

They can't win if they can't break me. They haven't broken me. I don't always have the stamina as I have gotten older, but they still haven't won as long as I am me and I am alive and I know I deserve better than their hatred.

I will fight when I can. The rest of the time, I will enjoy my music and art and my cats. While I am living the best life than I can, under the circumstances, they are the furthest thing from my mind, despite knowing the town I live in is already a theocracy run by extremists almost as cruel as the Taliban, if not the same as them. It's overwhelming to type that. It's overwhelming to fight that alone too. It's not 100% on my shoulders alone to try to enlighten people who refuse to listen either though. That's how I look at it. Don't let them win, but take time for yourself to enjoy your family, friends, activities, and hobbies and whatever else you normally enjoy until you can do something to fight back.

The big picture is not 100% on your shoulders. This fight is not 100% on your shoulders, meaning it is not your responsibility to try to fight alone. Don't try to put all of the responsibility to fight on your shoulders. It will crush you, for no good reason. You aren't being fair to yourself if you try to do that.

No one person can change it all and we have to regroup and fight back as we can, with a plan that will work. Right now, no one has a plan. There is no plan yet. Other than supporting the ACLU to fight every civil rights violation coming out, I honestly don't know the answers either.

So, we tread water and wait. Literally, all we *can* do is take a break until we figure out how to fight them back.