[wpietri]

The people describing racism, sexism, ableism, etc, and their impacts are not primarily the ones "using group membership". The problem starts and rests with the those systems, and is driven by the people who benefit from and act to sustain those systems.

If you want people to be truly equal, you need to work to end those systems. And that requires starting with an honest account of what's happening.

As a straight white dude, I definitely understand the urge to try to sweep the problems under the rug. It's much more comfortable to think that things are fine. But as MLK explained, we won't solve these problems without a "dynamic tension" that comes from making the problems very clear.

We didn't have slavery or Jim Crow or the Nadir because of people trying to fight race-based oppression. We had those things because race-based oppression is materially and mentally beneficial to a lot of the people on the oppressor end of those systems. And we won't end them by pretending that speaking clearly about racism is somehow the real racism.