Earlier this week in Ohio, the chair of the Mahoning County Trump campaign, Kathy Miller, blatantly went on record as saying there was no racism during the 60s, and that, in her position as a real estate agent, she can say that racism doesn’t exist now. In fact, she says, racism didn’t exist prior to President Obama being elected as president. The statement itself is absurdly ignorant, given the copious amounts of history coverage the civil rights era has been given. It becomes even more absurd, however, in context to her vocation as a real estate agent, which involves a set of laws that regulate charges of discrimination in housing markets, which, obviously, includes racism. To top off her opinions, Miller stated that she believes that the Black Lives Matter movement is a “waste of time”, because if black people “work and do the right thing”, that racism doesn’t exist. However, in the same way that electrical appliances don’t include tags that say “do not stick curler in eye” or “do not place toaster in water”, rule enforcement doesn’t exist in the absence of a problem. And, in this case, Miller’s very resistance to the entire institution of racism gives birth to the very issues that the “waste of time” BLMM stands for. And, rather than pick apart the appalling argument Miller presents, I choose to instead focus on the intimate relationship that is revealed between movements and resistance and the resistance to the movements, dangerously intertwined, but wholly necessary for the others existence.

The Black Lives Matter movement has often been criticized for its lack of central policy efforts, associated violence, and a misinterpretation of the movement somehow devaluing the lives of others by bringing attention to African-American lives. Historically, however, it is important to note that resistance movements begin in direct opposition to a majority they feel cannot, or will not, acknowledge their existence, rights, or basic humanity. That means that counter-resistance is implied, and is a sign of the presence of a problem, rather than a detraction. Vineyard owners in Delano placed armed thugs at their gates in response to workers protesting unfair wages, urged on by Cesar Chavez. Police battered and attacked protesters in Selma to negate the claims of King. Government agents infiltrated and sabotaged efforts by the Black Panther movement to discourage more radicalized African American resistance. And now, members of the BLMM are facing resistance in the form of figures such as Miller downplaying the effectiveness of such a movement, and furthermore, challenging the existence of the cause’s issues at all. Movements of resistance, however, do not take place in a vacuum. As the infamous existentialist philosopher Albert Camus states in his essay The Rebel, “The spirit of rebellion can exist only in a society where a theoretical equality conceals great factual inequalities.” This spirit of rebellion is exactly what the BLMM embodies; it is not an action, but a reaction to the “factual inequalities” that Camus speaks of.

Miller tells her interviewer that she, as a real estate agent, has never experienced the racism and prejudice the minority population has experienced, and therefore, it must not exist. Miller, as an older white woman in an affluent position, would not be expected to have experienced any form of discrimination, but her assertion that it therefore does not exist is a grievous example of the fallacy of an appeal to ignorance. If even one counterfactual exists, then her claim falls short, and I am a counterfactual. My parents have told me stories of how they’ve been driven from their home by racist neighbors, where law enforcement did nothing to defend their right to live in peace. I’ve been at the receiving end of being followed in department stores, being eyed over jewelry counters, being judged for my inter-racial relationship. Kathy Miller’s having not experienced discrimination in her line of work is not indicative of reality, but her perspective is indicative of a greater problem, which the BLMM seeks to address.

Minorities in this country are expected to be grateful for their seat at the table, happy with their economic and social opportunities, and content with how others around them perceive them. However, when minority history in the United States is put into context, this is an absurd stance to hold. From the very moment that Europeans stepped upon the shores of North America, subjugation of “lesser” races has been the name of the game. The extermination of Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans, and then African-Americans. The denial of rights and freedom to women, and the subsequent superiority of white women over colored women. For over three centuries, minorities have been worked, enslaved, massacred, slaughtered, bought, sold, assassinated, bullied, degraded, humiliated, mistreated and dehumanized, all the way into the late 80s and 90s of the last century—and then, all of a sudden, we are asked to believe that we have entered a “post racial” State, that racism no longer exists, or never has, and that equality has been achieved. If believing that racism never existed is naïve, then assuming that the wounds of 300 years can be healed and forgotten in a little over two decades is pure absurdity. The existence of the BLMM is a testament to the reality that those wounds have not yet been forgotten, and they are continually being ripped open and renewed. Members of the movement have a single goal in mind: That the unequal treatment of African-Americans be acknowledged, and hopefully rectified. Even this acknowledgement is impossible to come by, as counter-resistance is expressed by pointing to black-on-black violence, misrepresentation of statistics, the playing of the “race card”, self-fulfilling prophecies of disadvantage, and the inability of the black community to just assimilate.

When the BLMM protests, the American public admonishes their loud and “violent” forms of resistance, asking why they cannot be non-violent like Martin Luther King Jr.. However, when Colin Kaepernick chose to silently, and non-violently, show resistance by refusing to stand during the national anthem, he was just as harshly criticized, called unpatriotic, ungrateful, and had his jersey burned by disgruntled fans. The problem is not how African-Americans protest, but that they dare protest at all; it is an issue of biting that hand that feeds. Mark Twain, in “The Czar’s Soliloquy”, writes of patriotism, “…the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation all the time, but loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.” Patriotism is thought by many to be the reverse, to be a perpetual reverence of the Government and all its actions, regardless of how its citizens are treated. What the BLMM and Kaepernick demonstrate, however, is that while the Nation underlies the government and our homes, the Government changes over time. It cannot easily be said that the Government at the founding of this country is the same one that ruled during Jim Crow, or during the Trail of Tears, or the same that rules us now. There have been marvelous achievements under some presidents, and colossal failures of human rights under others. The truest patriotism, then, is to have a love of your homeland so intense, so deep-rooted, that you are willing to challenge any politician, political body or law that would sully the reputation of your Nation. Patriotism is not just saluting a flag, or singing an anthem, or hawking the right to arms, but having the courage to stand against your government as a minority, to belong to a movement, to rebel and resist when the time calls for it. Patriotism is kneeling against the flag, is sitting at lunch counters, is saying colored lives matter—not more or less than any others, but that they matter despite being shown the contrary.

So, to Kathy Miller, head of the Ohio Trump Campaign—I say thank you. Thank you for believing that your privilege is grounds for dismissing the entire manifesto of a people, of a movement, for discrediting decades and centuries of injustices that you are lucky to have evaded. Thank you for giving the necessary counterweight to give the very Movement you do not believe in the momentum and proof it needs to exist. Thank you for being a necessary evil, for perpetuating the lies and denial that people of color have resisted for centuries. Thank you for insulting blacks, for disregarding history, for willfully remaining blind to the troubles that lay outside of your own sphere of comfort. Thank you for representing a campaign that is the antithesis of all the things the BLMM stands for, and giving it a stark white backdrop to enact its shadow-play on. And finally, thank you for having the courage to voice your opinions to the world, shamelessly, boldly, so that your voice is a rallying banner for any minority that needs to point and say, “There—there is the reason why we protest, why we resist. There is the hand that feeds, the hand we bite—there, there is why our lives must matter.”