I could not agree more with Daisy here. This often bothers me, that we hold people who lived 50, 100, 200 years ago to the same standards we hold people to today – despite the fact that they grew up in vastly different social milieus.

I think a lot of you young folks have NO IDEA what we grew up with in the past, especially if we came from the Midwest or South.  I imagine those of you growing up with highly educated parents or on the coasts, didn’t have to deal with backward rednecks (I am a redneck myself, so I am permitted to use this word), but I did, and John Lennon did.  We were products of our place and time.  If you do not understand the influence of socialization on humans and culture, your radicalism and organizing efforts will suffer, so please get a clue.

As most of you already know, I also grew up a redneck, doing redneck things – fishing, hunting, roaming around with BB guns and regular guns. I am in many ways still a redneck and a Southerner and always will be one, no matter my political beliefs, my support of feminism, etc.

A person can do one of two things with their past: pretend it doesn’t exist, and suffer from that mental denial as the past never really goes away – not really – or they can interrogate it and integrate the best parts of it into life and attempt to eliminate the most negative bits.

Saying that someone who lived in 1700 anywhere in Europe was racist? Good job, fucking genius, as nearly anyone alive in Europe then was racist. Congratulations on your insight.

That said, it doesn’t invalidate their contributions, their thoughts or their existence. Obviously. Applying social standards and the trends of today to someone born long ago is historical obliviousness.

Mainly I just can’t take these leftist “purity balls” were you demonstrate you are into all the latest chic radicalism while willfully ignoring anything that will actually progress the world.

Activism as performance art and cliquish glee club is some bullshit, is all I’m saying.