You can no longer be silent

We all know at least one somebody, and probably multiple somebodies, who voted for, and thus enabled, the man who is now our president, and just made clear that he thinks white supremacists are “very fine people” who merely wanted to peacefully assemble to exercise their free speech rights in Charlottesville over the weekend, and were attacked by an “alt-left” mob and had to defend themselves.

Orwell’s head is spinning, indeed.

Those people that we know who enabled the guy who is empowering the Nazis need to come clean.

Where do they stand? This isn’t a “both sides” issue. You’re sickened by the Nazi white supremacists and their propagandist-in-chief, or you play mental gymnastics to advance the moral equivalency of Nazi white supremacists and the rest of us who stand up to them.

They need to come clean, and they need to be held accountable.

No doubt many if not the vast majority of them are “nice people” except for the fact that they hold these extremist beliefs, but hey, as long as we don’t talk about that stuff …

No. Not acceptable. Not anymore.

You need to hold them accountable. Best friend, family member, maid of honor, close co-worker, whatever.

You can no longer be silent.

You need to let them know that there’s right, there’s wrong, and that they’re wrong.

The hope would be that they want to know why you think they’re wrong, and you can tell them, and no, it won’t happen instantaneously, but maybe they start thinking about it, and doggone it, no, it’s not right to harbor hatred toward people based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and you know, come to think of it, life is a lot better when you just let the hate go.

But if things don’t go that way, and they may not, you need to make it clear: you and your hatred have no place in my life anymore.

This is on you now. These views need to be marginalized, but that is not going to happen if we keep making excuses for those who hold them.

If we fail to take these stands, we’re as much on the wrong side of history as they are.

Column by Chris Graham