I am so fucking tired of the casual racism. It is everywhere.

A friend with the best of intentions invited me to the MD RV Campers group on Facebook.

I just left.

Why?

Someone whined about flags on golf carts and I read the comments.

Seriously, y’all. I thought about dropping the bomb on them or calling them out, but you know? I feel like it would just be better to let the world burn, let all the racist assholes who reject the idea that protecting others is the right thing to do–every last one–join their maker.

They can call it Rapture or whatever they want. Me and my friends? We’ll be over here, at home, wearing masks and watching while the rest of them just leave.

Honestly, friends? I know you want to borrow my RV, but I am worried that if you do, you’ll discover the ugliness that is this state and its avid campers, and I’m not at all sure I want to inflict them on you.

And you know what else? I really REALLY wish I had enough money to buy my own campground, fly the rainbow flag high, and give all of you a solid, clean, safe space to come and be your awesome selves, because lord knows, that toxic dung heap I just witnessed isn’t it.

Someone pulled the pin suggesting the Gadsden flag is the only one he flies, and then there was the guy who said he was cool with anything Republican, but the Democrat ones?

Comments about triggering. Comments about “my opinion” and “free country” and so much more toxic.

Serious talk here: If you can stay silent or, worse, support this bullshit, please tell me so I can drop you like a hot rock.

To my friends of color who are targets every day, just for having darker skin than me, or an accent, or anything that makes you read as Not Cis Straight Evangelical White, I see you in all your glorious beauty and I am so, so sorry the world is so full of assholes.

We were sold a lie when I was a kid. And people lied, and lied, and lied some more, until the phone camera was invented and proved this was reality for you.

Facebook sucked all the air out of the room and Zuckerberg is paying for it now.

When Facebook takes on the hate, starts paying attention to its spread in these private cesspools, THEN I will believe we can start to move forward.

Until then, we will have to stick together and wait it out.

Republicans started this. The rest of us will finish it.

BUT THE ELECTION WILL NOT ERASE THE HATE.

If you want to see a better world, do the work.

That means:
* Taking on the racists where they appear on your friends list and calling them out.
* Leaving toxic spaces in the safest possible way.
* Boosting the signals of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ writers, and
* Sharing the positive aspects of diversity without reservation.

It also means removing toxic people from your shared space. That includes false friends, people who you keep only because they’re family, and anyone who uses the phrase “Yes, but…”