Confession Time

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I used to be a Republican. More than that, I used to be a conservative. I was raised by conservative parents, and though I wouldn't have said they influenced me, looking back now they definitely did. In college, I was surrounded by extremely liberal people, and I often found myself offended by just how militantly liberal they were. In a way, that made me more conservative. I was an extremely susceptible young woman then, I thought I was smarter than I was, and the supreme smugness of conservatism suited me well at the time. I fancied myself a pragmatist. This period reached its peak around 2008, when my daily internet reading usually included sites like National Review (yes, really). I voted for McCain. If you were dedicated enough to page through the archives of this blog, you'd find some posts on politics that make me cringe now.

I cannot say what exactly changed me except that I matured. I could no longer walk through the world with blinders on. The more I read, the more I experienced the world, the more I realized that conservatism is too often a thinly veiled word for a world that white, straight, privileged people think ought to exist. A world where minorities mooch and commit crimes because they don't have the personal mettle to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Where women need to have decisions made for them. Where the foundations of American life (their version of it)  are threatened by immigration, Spanish on customer service helplines, and gay people not only coming out of the closet but having the audacity to demand the same rights and privileges as straight people.

I can no longer believe that white privilege doesn't exist, that every person in the world has the same opportunities that I do, that racism is dead, that universal health care is a bad idea (oh, how could I ever have thought that?)

So I want to apologize. I want to apologize for my ignorance. I want to apologize for my apathy. Tonight, as the state of North Carolina denies its citizens equal rights, I declare that I am no longer a Republican, that I am no longer a conservative, that I will no longer keep my mouth shut when others spew bigotry, that I will do my best to help the cause of equality in every way I can.