Thursday, March 28, 2024
39.0°F

REBUTTAL: What Ralph is missing

| August 27, 2021 1:00 AM

Woke Wars Episode II: Reality Strikes Back

Comrades, haters and losers, I come to you as the boogeyman that haunts The Press’ editorials. I’m a fully-vaccinated, woke leftist who spent last summer protesting police brutality.

Socialist? Absolutely.

Narcissist? Debatable.

Reality-denier? NO.

This is the problem with Mr. Ralph Ginorio’s column last Friday. Leftists like me do not deny reality. We acknowledge the history and lived reality of marginalized people, perspectives that a capitalist, white-supremacist hegemony has suppressed for centuries.

This system is more insidious than one racist bad apple. Our country’s foundation rests on colonization, slavery and genocide, horrific crimes that still affect Americans’ lives. Of course this means oppressing minorities, but even the “canceled” cis white men supporting the system still suffer under its injustices.

All things considered, which is the bigger threat? Queer teenagers experimenting with their gender identities, or the coronavirus that has snuffed out more than 600,000 American lives?

What will destroy your family? Philosophy nerds criticizing American values, or climate change-accelerated wildfires that are devouring our homes and choking our skies?

I understand that my beliefs fall far outside what is considered “acceptable” in conservative North Idaho. But that does not change the threats that we all face. So please take steps to protect yourself and your loved ones.

Get vaccinated.

Wear a mask.

Consume news responsibly.

Or you can keep blaming your problems on me. I won’t stop you. None of us control reality — but we can choose how to react.

NADIA HITCHCOCK

Coeur d’Alene