If you’ve paid attention to the news recently, you would have seen an onslaught of hate crime and legal changes that are detrimental to a nation that prides itself on an ideology of freedom. This article will explore this, but also explore attitudes that arise in conversations about equality in general: the notion of political correctness and hypersensitivity. Your solidarity with those experiencing hate crimes, and minorities in general, has to be without this for an effective egalitarianism.

What has been going on, lately?

Right-wing elected officials and activists failed to shut down comments about killing Muslims.

Vandals overturned and damaged headstones at a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis.

A mosque was set on fire.

Transgender students can now be excluded from the bathroom that matches their gender identity.

A white teen accused of sexually assaulting a mentally disabled black teen received no jail time.

Five trans women have been murdered.

This is within the last four weeks.

Three Mid-Atlantic mosques received threats of violence.

A French holocaust historian was detained by US immigration.

A Nigerian software engineer was forced to prove he was an engineer to enter the US.

More headstones were vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia.

A Muslim teen was found hanging in the woods.

This was this week.

All of this was in the United States. If you aren’t already (and if not, why on Earth not?) standing with marginalized groups, friends and colleagues, you need to start now. But that’s more than just being egalitarian. That’s listening to the concerns of minorities when they tell you that there is something wrong in this country. That’s providing a safe space for marginalized groups that are experiencing these hate crimes. That’s defending them when they experience othering or abuse.

However, that’s not derailing conversations about issues of prejudice when they are brought up by minorities. That’s not contributing to their othering by making jokes about their race or faith or another identity, then suggesting their anger is that ‘people are just being too sensitive nowadays’. That’s not undermining their fear of hate crime and profiling and that’s most definitely not implying that they are the cause of them, like your garbage president did.

Don’t for a minute think I’m aligning you with the monsters that commit hate crimes towards people of color or trans women, or that you are one of the people that attack people of faith’s religious monuments and buildings. You are not one of them, and your retaliation against them is recognized.

However, if you are one of the people that think that the United States is overwhelmed with political correctness and that we are being too hypersensitive to protect people’s feelings, then you make the push for equality harder. You don’t stand in solidarity with the marginalized.

Believe it or not, minorities get the difference between jokes and threats. They get that a lot of things that previously weren’t seen as offensive now are. They get why people are responding to this with the notion of political correctness because of these changes. But what they want you to get is that when you make it seem OK to continue with this behavior and attitude you effectively undermine the conversations they are trying to have about equality.

I don’t care that a group of Twitter edge-lords bearing outdated frog meme avatars with MAGA hats think this attitude is hypersensitive, nor do I care about the liberals that think that the promotion of safe-spaces, ‘PC culture’ and trigger warnings are why we are in this mess. I think that’s asinine, and I can tell you that history and even science has shown that slurs and words hurt more than you think they do.

I can tell you that being a person in the LGBTQIA community in a place that supports my sexual identity and listens to my experiences makes conversations about discrimination significantly easier. I can tell you that trigger warnings could have spared many periods of dissociation and anxiety when my mental health was at its worst.

The irony is that when you take an anti-PC stance, you attempt to achieve equality by undermining the experiences and lives of the people inequality primarily targets. You realize that doesn’t work, right? You don’t ask how to build a rocket then deny the guidance of an aerospace engineer. Or maybe you do, but then you get a rocket that doesn’t work, and then what’s the point?

Hate crime has grown significantly very recently. They are attacks on our friends, colleagues, and families. They are laws, threats, and revolts against marginalized groups of people that already face daily discrimination and othering in their lives. They contribute to daily stress which, while this is something all of us will experience, result in minorities experiencing additional hardships in their lives. Your rejection of their concerns only worsens the strain.

When you stand in solidarity in response to this recent hatred, and prejudice in general, with people of color, LGBTQIA people, disabled people, women and people of faith, please take this all into consideration. Listen to their concerns, and do not derail the conversation. You’re most certainly not helping if you’re doing so because you can’t achieve equality when you fail to incorporate the perspective of the people that lack it. What an awful rocket that will be.