Julia,

I know it’s tough to hear this question, but I would have liked to have known just a bit more about Eric’s post, although since you posted a code of conduct, I can imagine.

And of course, as I am, I would hope, an intelligent reader — most of the time — I can spot illogical vitriolic nonsense for myself. And even comment after his or her responses.

Maybe let me be the censor.

I occasionally even watch Fox News and shudder, even read Breitbart, all to gauge the forces of darkness if you will.

It makes for a chilling look into those who would treat the political reality of disinformation as catalyst for primitive tribalism: dear god, it’s almost as if the whole MAGA charade is a tailgate party wherein the mantra is ‘support the coach, no matter what stupid rules he violated, we’re gonna really kick some ass this season’.

However, as an aside, I recently incorrectly responded to a fellow Medium writer.

Instead of a careful re-read of his work, I first wrote from a place of passionate rebuttal.

What I thought he was writing was that white people had invented racism.

I also incorrectly thought that his writing was an unfortunate hyperbolic example of labelling without looking into the many historical genocidal atrocities carried out by many non-white cultures across the globe.

BUT, after the second read, what he really meant was that some white people had codified racism, engaged in Social Darwinism and enacted repressive laws accordingly, and of course he was right. (I remember reading about Christoph Meiners, who first used the term caucasian way back in the mid- 18th century.)

But he never used the word codified.

What I meant was that all cultures in all times have been blighted by racism and that it occurs far too often in modern times: take for instance the Chinese Han people’s recent incarceration of the minority muslim Uyghur people — close to one million, if not more, in concentration camps.

Unfortunately, by the time I had realized my mistake — at two in the a of m — he had blocked me.

My point is that I would have liked to have had the opportunity to apologize for my misread and then hopefully re-engage in a more healthy discussion — at least from my perspective.

But he blocked me.