All of this is brilliant, but the bit about not trusting your instincts really stuck with me. Stereotypes, casual observations of The Other, heirarchies are a poison of the mind that linger like a shadow on the edge of every thought, a darkness just out of view that colors beliefs and perceptions, even when you believe consciously that they’re wrong.
As the privileged class (men, straight people, white people, etc.), in order to not be awful people, we must wage a constant war of spies and shadows in our own minds, where every thought and feeling, however innocuous, could be an enemy in disguise. We owe it, both to the less privileged around us and to ourselves, to fight this war, to run a background check on every idea and feeling and thought, to treat our own minds as a warzone.
Never assume you’re free of those ideas, because the moment you do, they’ve won.
And listen.
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