cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37344898
NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
I’d love to say this surprises me, but it does not in the slightest.
Frankly, I used to be on board with folks like this. The world felt immutable to my brief consciousness, and joking about genocide, slavery, and, oddly enough, mandatory Pictionary nights punishable by firing squad, seemed harmless. It was all equally acceptable absurdism, in our eyes. I worry that these kids don’t see the world as an unchanging place where their ideas float around with all the weight of a butterfly. I fear they see their voices as bricks to heave and build. That terrifies me.
I’m not big on Voltaire quotes, but the one about believing absurdities applies here. If you life in a culture long enough, you start to internalize it.