A woman I’ve known many years through protests, mostly for immigration & women’s rights, feigned umbrage at my quip about medicating to get over the elections. She accused me of insensitivity & racist indifference to Mexican-Americans, encouraging heroin use, & expressing white privilege.

When I privately asked her to knock off the baiting, she insisted I was trying to silence the voice of the oppressed & continued to berate me as a “phony white racist.” She finished by saying she doesn’t understand half of what I write because she’s just trying to survive & *ain’t worried about the world over.”

This was supposed to bring me to my knees but it didn’t make any sense & is just garden-variety baiting. Addiction affects most people in one way or another; drug & alcohol addiction are a national crisis in this country among every demographic, including within my family. I was not silencing the oppressed but refusing to tolerate her insults. I’m also trying to survive & on a fixed income & still haven’t gone stupid about the suffering of people in other countries, especially those in countries where the US is conducting racist wars.

Her insults on my post (which I deleted) & her continuing private insults had nothing to do with racism or drug abuse. It was all about her committed support to the Democratic Party & Clinton. She still supports Obama despite his betrayal & massive deportation rates of undocumented immigrants. Sometimes you can intimidate people with baiting. But not the ones who can see right through it.