Why I so heavily stress understanding reactionary groups is that most of the time, the person has a "good" reason for their bigotry, and ultimately that doesn't *matter.* By this I mean that nobody goes down this path who has a healthy relationship to community and to themselves. They are often victimized, sometimes disenfranchised, repressed, belittled, and in really extreme cases the subject of utter atrocity.
By framing these people as sinister mustache twirlers exclusively, who lean into bigotry for "no good reason" you both fail to understand what drives more people to their cause, and eventually you WILL find a type of suffering that gives you leniency in allowing their bigotry.
The stupid hypothetical about whether the terminally ill child can use their make-a-wish to say the N word is such a good example of this because a frustrating amount of people either entertain it OR start to water down their feelings about the word, where when stacked against death the go "does it really matter?" What this demonstrates is that for many people, there IS a threshold of a person's suffering that makes you find them "allowed" to also cause suffering.
It's how zionism gets discussed constantly. It's how trans infighting gets discussed. It's how people sit dumbfounded that immigrants vote for Trump, that Black men will join nazi orgs, that self-described feminists will invite deeply misogynistic men into their anti-trans circles.
By thinking that none of the bigoted groups you find easy to condemn have "reasons" for acting as they do, it becomes so easy to eventually see someone as reasonable when their logic hits home for you. But the two essential truths are that 1. behind most bigoted actions is legitimate pain, and 2. that's never ever enough.
The incel was bullied to isolation. The misogynist was abused by his mom. The transphobe has experienced sexual assault. The exorsexist had a vile ex-partner. The racist survived extreme poverty.
It all MATTERS to understanding what radicalized someone, but it doesn't MATTER in a way that excuses their actions.
"We have to ignore abuse allegations because the abuser was abused before" "So and so was hurt by someone in X group which means they can now say slurs against that group" "Antisemitism exists which means Islamophobia is allowed" "I can't be a perpetrator of x because I have been a victim of it"
If you sort bigotry into "justified" vs "unjustified" you will always find something you think is excusable. It is ALL unjustified because NOTHING makes it a valid form of action. The end!
We can hold sympathy, we can understand what it now takes to help someone unlearn, we can make room for amends and forgiveness and whatever else but even at the most gracious and patient intersection the actions are not "justified."
It is very very important to go "oh. this is WHY you've done this" but we cannot come to the conclusion that that makes it okay.
