Ever since my twenties, I’ve been accused of being “naïve” because I am willing to actually confront and debate racists, anti-Semites, Christian Dominionists, Trumpsters, avowed Nazis & Klansmen, etc., both online and off.

I don’t block them. I don’t scream insults at them. I don’t call them names. I don’t demand they be deplatformed or banned from public speaking.

I listen. I read. I make sure I’m at least somewhat familiar with whatever subject we are discussing.

Then I calmly and politely tell them why I think they are wrong.

And this, I have been told for decades, is “naïve.” The people calling me naïve often assume I am trying to convince bigots and racists not to be bigots and racists.

I am not. Nobody who grew up in the deep south suffers from the delusion that you can talk racists and bigots out of being racists and bigots.

I confront and debate them because people who publicly express bigoted and oppressive views often serve as propaganda shock troops. Their agenda is to normalize views and statements earlier rejected as absurd or shockingly immoral.

And now, after all these years, where we are now has proven I was not, and am not, the naïve one.

Here is what naïveté truly is:

“Naïveté” is believing “If you ignore them, they’ll go away.”

“Naïveté” is loftily declaring yourself above challenging brutes and bigots, and thus allowing bigotries and brutalities we thought we’d left behind to re-embed themselves firmly into mainstream thought and speech

“Naïveté” is believing that reading internet blogs, posts, tweets, and comments is an adequate alternative to reading books.

“Naïveté” is believing that you needn’t bother with the mental heavy-lifting required for framing an argument, but can fight bad ideas solely with screams, insults, blowing whistles, breaking things, and your fists.

“Naïveté” is believing that everything from threats, to blacklistings, to bannings, to beatings, to torture, are all okay so long as the targets are Muslims/Jews/Nazis/Communists etc.

“Naïveté” is believing that if you intimidate people into silence, make the price for speaking out the destruction of their life, the loss of their livelihood and fear for their and their family’s personal safety, the ideas you are silencing will melt away forever.

And most of all, “naïveté” is believing that if you get laws passed punishing people for expressing certain beliefs, you aren’t endangering own right to express your own beliefs.