i kid myself that someday i'll leave this festering hellhole country (like I could ever afford it anyway) and go somewhere better (is anywhere not full of insane racist nutjobs now?) but the optimistic idiot in me still feels like I can change things somehow. I just don't know how.

it drives me to absolute fucking despair. that people can sit there and earnestly spout off about how asylum seekers are all rapists & frauds. that trans people are all predators. that immigrants are all ontologically evil. so many poisonous voices. what can we do? how can we make things better?

like. maybe this was a completely innocent interaction! but i had to stop and listen because the chances of a conversation like that taking a sharp racist turn in this climate...I still think it was a very weird question for an adult stranger to ask a child.