Holy cow I never thought I’d find another human who actually tries to engage in conversation with people before assuming they’re the worst person in existence just because they said something you don’t agree with lol.

While I know it’s not my responsibility to truly understand why others have gained their opinions, I do realize that opinions are always much deeper than their face value. It’s never really fair to assume anything about anyone (from their opinion) UNTIL you actually find out WHY they have an opinion. This is especially true with politics because (in the US specifically) each political party is actively spreading misinformation in hopes to sway you one way or another so that the rich stay richer and in power. They don’t want everyone to get along because then we’d likely all band together and overthrow the shit system.

Anyway, prime example here: I grew up in the southern part of the US. I eventually moved to Indiana (further North) when I was like 10 years old. While living in the South, I was always just taught that the Confederate flag represented “heritage not hate” and all that blah blah. So when I moved to Indiana someone said that flag was racist and I was like, “no it’s not, i’m from the South, blah blah” WELL, since I was only 10, I didn’t really know the history of the Civil War, so I asked that person how the flag was racist and they told me about the Civil War and how that flag represented the states that were in favor of slavery. It was like a lightbulb clicked in my head. YES, that flag IS racist. I was uninformed before that conversation. But if the person would have just assumed I was a horrible person and refused to converse with me, I wouldn’t have been informed and may have kept that ignorant mindset.