let's eviscerate these jokers together, tree_.

Yes. I do have an eye for injustice, but when it comes to 'evisceration', you may want to recruit Burt in my stead, cause I'm pretty bad with words.

Alright. I won't ask how I contradicted myself if you're really done. I'll just shrug and hope you have a better day, pal.

This feels like an accusation. Go on...

I just never feel like you make a good argument when disagreeing with me, and instead gather your cronies and hurl insults or just lift your noses in the air and say what I said was simply 'wrong'.

Who exactly are my cronies? How do you imagine that I gather them? And would you mind giving me examples of what you're talking about?

It's your turn to research. I'm still tired from googling 'ASMR' for you earlier...

I wouldn't recommend huffing butane.

Butane is a better high than paint, but it's not worth the risk.

Thank you. That's exactly what I thought.

stick with freon

OK, for starters, please explain to me why you believe I don't know where I would politically stand if I were an African-American.

Must be nice to be rolling in duckets, Mr. Fancypants.

OK, for starters, if you were African-American, you wouldn't be you. It's pointless to pretend that you would still hold the same opinions that you do right now. Being African-American, growing up African-American, living with everything that entails, would make you a completely different person.

In my hypothetical, though, I am me, just with different colored skin and family history. It's a given that cultural influence would have played a huge role in my development, but I believe, with my personality and the challenges I've faced, I'd have ended up in the same general vicinity as I did in this skin.

tree gonna tree

The main point I was making: Identifying with your group more than as an individual is a bad idea.

There you go. This is something we can actually talk about because it doesn't rely on radical hypotheticals. My instinct here is to agree with your statement. On its face, I can totally see what you're getting at. But I'm not sure that I completely agree.

I wonder if your's is an easy position to take when one's life isn't as defined by a group; when the group, the shared experience, isn't as valuable, like it may be for other (especially marginalized and/or oppressed) communities/peoples.

I see the level of challenge to achieve a state of identity as irrelevant when simply attempting to discern good/bad ideas.

And in holding this idea, I do not appreciate being seen as a white man with white man opinions any more than I would as a black man.