[shkkmo]

> Marginalized people with any kind of survival instinct are wise to give a wide berth to anyone giving voice to open hostility to their kind. Such people can have a great deal of power to help them into the grave without ever lifting a finger to commit violence, sometimes simply by not lifting a finger to help when they need it.

This makes no sense. Avoiding people whom you perceive as having hostility in their words is not a good strategy for finding a support network. A good strategy to is find people who have demonstrated that they are willing to 'raise a finger' and including them in your life. While there is a negative correlation between those two groups, excluding the former group from your search for the latter will limit your ability to build a strong support network.

[DoreenMichele]

That does not fit with my experience. Giving openly hostile people the benefit of the doubt never resulted in me finding hidden allies. It merely wasted a lot of my time and got me actively crapped on.

So let me ask: are you a member of a marginalized group? Because I can't help but wonder at the reasons behind our very different point of views.