Folks need to remember, it is extremely important to remember, that not everyone has the same upbringing, the same background, or the same base awareness.
My mom, her older brother, their mom, their aunt, and their uncle, were told in school, in the upper midwest, that the Civil War was a State's Rights issue, not about Slavery.
My mom's younger brother, and those of us younger than him, got the updated textbooks that admitted it was about slavery.
My mother was extremely protective and controlling, to the point where I wasn't allowed to operate the fucking toaster by myself until I was 15. Supposedly I would have been allowed to earlier, but I'd been told "no" every time I asked until I was 12 when I just stopped asking and accepted I would only get food if my mom was available, or if I could get it out of a bag or jar by myself.
She wouldn't let me go on a class field trip to see a play in ASL, because the play was about lesbians. She turned Rent off when she realized it was Queer and forbade me from watching it.
I learned about brainwashing and unpersoning when I read Guardians of Ga'hool, which I was only allowed to read because it was For Kids. Yeah, the numbers thing was Kind Of gone over in my high school history class when we were going over the Holocaust for the 8th time and they felt we could handle the idea of gay people and Rromani being included and also the numbering. But it was described so vaguely that I genuinely don't think it registered to any of us that the victims were referred to by their numbers. Not until I read a book by a survivor of the Holocaust did that register.
I learned gay people were actual real things, not scary bogiemen, not from my lesbian neighbors existing, but from finding YuGiOh Puzzleshipping Fanfic.
I wasn't allowed out alone after dark until I was in my 20s and even then it was ONLY because I was in college and had night classes.
I auditioned, with permission, for my high school theatre, in senior year. I was 17, almost 18. I got in. Then my mother decided that because she didn't want to actually transport me that late after school (practice usually got out at 10PM), and I wasn't allowed to carpool with anyone because "they'll kidnap you", I had to drop out.
I was isolated, I AM socially inept, and I was and am Fucking Ignorant about a lot of fucked up shit in the world. I'm in my 30's.
Hell. I had some acquaintances growing up. Black family. Mom liked the kids but wouldn't let me spend time at Their place, I had to spend my time with them in my Own home. Why? "They're Mormon."
Never told me what a Mormon was, I was just supposed to understand that whatever it was, It Was Bad and I was not to associate with it.
Things that are common knowledge to you are things that someone else has Never Heard Of, or only interacted with the Concept of through fiction.
"Gay people exist" should have been common knowledge to me in elementary school, "Gay" was used as a damn slur! How was 11 year old me, who didn't have internet access and restricted reading access, supposed to learn that "Gay" wasn't just an insult, until I chanced upon it in the media?
Sure at 12 one of my classmates new she was a Lesbian. I didn't even know what a lesbian was.
Faulting people for what they Don't Know does not help anyone.
Faulting people for knowing things only through fiction does not help anyone.
I don't care if the person is 1 or 92. Even if it's something they "should know", or should just intuitively understand like "slavery is bad". Some people need to be told, because the only world they know is the one they were told they were in by their parents.
Does the screencapped quote reflect ignorance? Fuck yes. Does it reflect insensitivity? Yeah kind. But are people really going to fault someone for speaking imperfectly, even when the message of "this is fucked up and wrong to do to a person" is extremely clear?
