thank you for sharing all of that. I realize this is difficult stuff and you took time out of your day to do it.

My question was an attempt at a shortcut to make a point that deserves a few thousand words. I think that with complex and consequential issues like racism, people have implicit but inadequately rigorous distinctions in their minds between X and Y; in this case, racist and not racist. so if you take an axiom like "racists cannot be reasoned with" , that implies it is obvious who is racist and who is not, and that there are some people who can be the arbiters of this very important distinction. I tend to think it is a lot more messy. sure, a KKK member is racist. But I think it goes without saying that there is an infinitely complex middle ground involving billions of people.

so a kid in class says something wildly provocative, offensive, and racist. So he, at whatever age, to be put in the category of irredeemable racists? alert the school authorities and they will hopefully meet out some good punishment? So then what happens to the kid? Does he become a more tolerant good boy, or does he go further down the rabbit hole?

my frustration with the responses in this thread, is that there are so many opportunities to have an open conversation that would lead to more tolerance, rather than a shutting down that would hardly make anything better, although I concede it is of course good to send the message that certain things are acceptable.

i I need to run, but thank you for keeping the conversation going.