A Rant From a White Southern Liberal Millennial Woman Who is Sick and Fucking Tired of Being Nice to Nice People: Hope You’re Triggered

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If you have ever met me briefly, you probably identify me with the word “nice.” If you have known me for a longer amount of time, you might know me as “nice” or you might know me as a raging bitch. I’m not here acting like I’m God’s gift to earth, but in general, I’m an extremely “nice” person. In lots of circumstances, I am well-liked. In any number of them I also am holding my tongue, quietening my voice, or trying not to anger someone else.

This ends today.

I spent the first day after the election in disbelief. Then in grief. Then I tried to understand the roots from whence I came. At each stage I wrote a different article. Now I sit in rage. And wonderfully enough, this is the first article I’ve felt proud to publish because it’s the truest emotion I’ve landed on when it comes to recent history. (To any from-birth feminists (which I am not) reading this, I’d like to highlight just how fucking hard it is to even GET to this stage. Disbelief, where I was raised, isn’t accepted from women. Much less rage for anything you’ve been spoon-fed by your community.)

I grew up in a town in the rural South where everyone was “nice” to “the other.” No one was ever overtly rude to anyone, but here is where the silent majority lurks.

Black people, okay???
Slight hesitation.
But oh I have to be nice.
So I’ll be nice.

Gay people, okay???...
Slight hesitation.
But oh I have to be nice.
So I’ll be nice.

Trans people, okay???...
Slight hesitation.
But oh I have to be nice.
So I’ll be nice.

Muslims, okay???...
Slight hesitation.
But oh I have to be nice.
So I’ll be nice.

If I had a penny for every time I heard “I don’t have a problem with black people…[somebullshit]” growing up, I’d be a fucking millionaire. Chances are if you have to say out loud you don’t have a problem with black people, you probably have a problem with black people. And this makes you, you guessed it, racist.  

For the most part, my community was nice to everyone. But HOT DAMN I knew if I ever came home dating a POC or a woman, I’d be kicked out of the house and my community would look at me like a modern Hester Prynne. I knew, without being told so, that these relationships were not acceptable. In the best of cases, it would merely be tolerated. And in this case, toleration just looks more like ignoring an entire flesh and blood human being.

Now isn’t that a fucking metaphor for all those white people saying “I’m a Trump supporter, but I’m not racist.” You may not be lynching people, but you’re setting up the stage and adorning it with lights while drawing your own curtains, sipping sugared tea and saying “but you know, *I* don’t really have a problem with black people.”

When it comes to being nice, most of you were perfectly willing to expend energy to look like a “good person.” But when it comes to the safety and wellbeing of millions of Americans at the cost of some “way of life” that is NEVER COMING BACK, you basically said “I’m ignoring you. You don’t matter.”

And fine. No one has told you this to your face yet, but your way of life isn’t coming back. Your jobs aren’t being stolen by immigrants and people in other countries. They’re being stolen by machines and a world that requires different skillsets. And no one ever got a laptop and said “yeah, no thanks, I’ll go back to a world where I input financial records manually.” NO ONE. (See: later discussion about what to do when we ALL get taken over by AIs.)

You’ve essentially pled for a world that is dead and you’ve mobilized the people fueled by the future of love who are going to walk all over its fucking corpse. I’m proud to say I’m one of them.

I have too much rage to correctly formulate all of my thoughts so I’m going to end with this. I am too to blame. I took your point of views and was “nice” back to you. I called you my crazy Republican Uncle or brushed you off as dumb or even showed you compassion because I really wanted to believe you didn’t know any better. You did; you just didn’t care.

I am heartbroken that it has taken the election of a sociopathic, narcissistic, inexperienced, crusty fucking Cheeto to make me come to the realization that I’ve been letting you slide. But come hell or high water, I am NOT letting you off the hook anymore. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and I promise you that the chickens do indeed come home to roost. 

 

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