On of the Little Rock Nine, a black high school girl, walks though a crowd under National Guard protection in order to enter a high school that has just been forced to integrate by the federal government. Behind her, a white girl screams, her mouth wide with canines bared, her face twisted into a mask of hate.

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   James Endres Howell (jameshowell@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 13-Mar-2025 22:50:13 JST James Endres Howell

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   Consider this photograph: Little Rock, Arkansas, on the morning of September 4, 1957. My own parents, in other states, were high school students that day. Living memory.

   Note the primatology. A screech like a chimpanzee might make, pure aggression, part of our nature.

   This emotion, hate. It is a potent mix of terror, rage, righteous indignation, and incendiary mob approval.

   Our enlightened rhetorical questions about medium and long term consequences are a tragic category error.

   @inthehands