I have been accused on many occasions of being brainwashed. That accusation is always made by someone who has read fewer books than I have. They’re usually familiar with just one book that has taught them that snakes have voice boxes and that an 800-year-old man cut down tens of thousands of trees, stripped them, planed them and bent them into a ship which held enough food and water for two of every animal on the planet.

Growing up in Kentucky, I ran into a lot of such people who were totes not brainwashed because that’s what college does to you, apparently.

I remember one of my older cousins talking about how N-words were always trying to get welfare and reparation checks when slavery has been over for over a century and why should ‘we’ have to pay reparations when we didn’t have nothing to do with slavery?

I said, ‘why are you so racist?’

She scoffed with absolute contempt, “I’m not racist. I don’t call them N-words to their faces!”

She felt aggrieved that *I* had called her a racist, like how dare I? She hadn’t lynched any black people so how could she be racist?

I thought about that when I watched the terrorist attack that we saw Trump unleash for the first time on American soil in the Capitol since 1812 when he incited his mob to stop our elected representatives from doing exactly what they were elected to do.