Blinded by the Gaslight
Speaking from experience, when racists and bullies of all stripes are confronted about their misdeeds, a common line of defense they’ll employ is to actively gaslight you so that you’ll doubt the veracity of the evidence that exists. “No, I didn’t call you [insert racial slur here], you must have misheard me.” Or, “I didn’t do [insert heinous act here], it was that other guy.” Because human experience is subjective and plausible deniability is a thing, these passive-aggressive forms of gaslighting are often quite successful because who’s to say whose version of reality is right, right? (And sometimes, there’s the implied, if unspoken, threat: “And even if you’re right, what are you going to do about it.”)
I’m not here to tell you what to believe about the smirking kid in the MAGA hat — I’m not going to name him or his school on principle, but y’all know who I’m talking about — but what I CAN tell you is that I’ve seen that look before on many “innocent” faces before. More often than not, that expression has been attached to privileged white males with backgrounds similar to the ones who were caught on video this weekend. These are the same kids who, unless they’re eventually humbled by life and/or develop consciences, grow up to become full-fledged bigots later in life. At best (or at worst, depending on your perspective), they graduate to setting immigration policy for an equally racist president.
For people of this ilk, there are ALWAYS mitigating circumstances for why they say the things they say and do the things they do, whether it involves scapegoating other groups (*shudder*BLACK ISRAELITES *shudder*) or manipulating the gotta-hear-both-sides media into broadcasting their mewling alibis. It’s never their fault, they’re being unfairly portrayed, they’re young and didn’t know what they were doing, and yadda yadda yadda. A litany of excuses with precious little personal accountability. (Yet if you were to caution them about, say, rushing to judge the black victims of police violence, the cognitive dissonance would make your hair stand on end.)
Despite how noxious their actions were, I’m loathe to add my body to dogpile on these kids for what was, thankfully, a relatively minor and bloodless racial incident. But I’m equally loathe to give these kids a pass “until all the facts come in.” Life is all about nuance and mitigating circumstances, sure. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes shitty teens embracing a shitty, hateful ideology are shitty teens embracing a shitty, hateful ideology. The only thing they — or more specifically, their parents and adult authority figures — regret is having it all captured on camera. So if you have to identify a source for your scorn for anyone, it shouldn’t be for those kids. After all, they didn’t learn how to be smirking assholes all on their own.
