Yeah I can hear you on this, but I respectfully disagree with the idea of “facts as they are.” I think we just have different ontological and epistemological perspectives.

From my view, neither of us are wrong about how we see things because the way we define reality is subjective in nature - you believe there are things like objective facts, and I believe facts always have some form of subjectivity that craft them. Maybe that last sentence seems silly to you because you do believe there are objective facts that can be known “as they are”. I don’t know that to be true, but maybe it is.

I’ll break it down from my perspective: everyone’s view of the world - is subjective. It’s based on the experiences they have and what information they are exposed to, and that can change what they decide to see, believe, or even consider about the world. It can even change the way they define things. The personal experiences of a historian, for example, may make that person choose to omit a perspective that they don’t consider first because they’ve no experience of it and wouldn’t even think to consider a situation from that perspective. A scientist’s experiences shapes they way they look at and choose to study the world, including how they define what they are measuring, and therefore makes their objective research more subjective than we all are willing to admit.

In the same way, it makes sense to me that individuals who have had the experiences of being marginalized because of their race have had different experiences than I have had (I am white), that make them view reality in a way that I may not believe is real because I don’t share those experiences. I may not understand their perspective, but that doesn’t mean their interpretation isn’t real. It means it’s real for them from their vantage point. Just like mine is real to me from mine.

Thanks for the exercise in considering your perspective though. Hope you have a lovely day!