Ignorance Can't Save You

There’s a seductive luxury in being able to ignore political reality. To shop, love, raise children, work, and even pray without understanding the politics shaping the realities and destinies of our lives.

It no longer sounds thoughtful or considerate to say, “There are three things I don’t discuss: politics, race, and religion.” Now it sounds like an ostrich with its head in the sand; sheltering the mind while the body still suffers the storm.

Politics is dangerous because it governs material life. Race and religion, in any serious form, are dangerous too, because when handled honestly they challenge the status quo. They expose power. They disturb comfort. They force an accounting.

To be honest, if you read the Bible and do not become at least a little revolutionary, you may have read it wrong. If you studied Malcolm, Martin, or Assata and were not revolutionized, then you heard them wrong. Their words were not decorative. They were confrontational. They were meant to disturb your peace with injustice.

We are no longer in a place where ignorance can pretend to be safety. Truthfully, it never was. Ignorance has never excused the governed. “Ignorance of the law” has never been a valid defense for ordinary people. Yet somehow, if those who officiate the law violate laws that weren't “clearly established” statutory or constitutional rights... shorthand for ignorance of the law... then ignorance becomes immunity.

So no, We can no longer ignore the canary in the coal mine and blame our lungs for why we're heaving in fumes and not filtering out the toxins anymore. We have to interrogate those who told us our livelihood was attached to the life diminshing process of coal mining to begin with...