This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora, and can also be accessed via “https://www.quora.com/Why-were-people-less-racist-in-the-80s-than-today/answer/Antonio-Amaral-1“

They weren’t.

The further back in time you look, the more racist people were.

You may be lucky enough to realize the difference between what was socially acceptable behaviour in environments that were essentially cultural silos and today’s interconnected world where no social issue is hidden from public dialogue.

You might want to take a moment to consider things you take for granted — that piss off many bigots who don’t realize they’re responsible for making those things happen. For example, gay pride parades would not exist today were it not for rampant bigotries against the gay community that lived in literal fear of their lives by random strangers who would physically assault them — often in groups and just for entertainment.

Black History Month would not exist without the KKK, lynchings, and a host of horrors in which I keep learning every year about tragedies I was never aware of that make me ashamed of humanity.

It’s a never-ending stream of vile hatred that humanity indulges in, and of which racism is only one form of evil among many that we struggle with as a species.

This is why social media is so essential today.

Bigotries are no longer incognito.

Everyone has a video recorder on their person and, within seconds, can subject an abusive monster to public shaming from around the world.

We are no longer able to pretend that racism is just part of life and that it’s okay.

We are no longer able to ignore the vile behaviours of abusive monsters in society that we used to turn our heads away from and pretend it wasn’t our business to do something about it.

We can no longer hide behind the excuses that we can’t do anything about it because all the dirty laundry is flapping about in our faces, and we either clean it up or become soiled by it.

This is a remarkable time we’re living in because we are all learning to wake up, whether we want to or not.

The troglodytes among us who endlessly wine about stupidities like “woke mind virus” or “go woke, go broke” are just verbal versions of the red alert beanies informing the world that such a person is a toxic idiot who needs to grow up and get in touch with their humanity.

They can whine and stamp their feet all they want, but their antics are nothing more than the dying last gasps of an under-evolved creature going extinct.

Because of the internet and because of social media, people are learning to become more educated and aware of the psychological dysfunctionality issues plaguing humanity. We are learning to heal ourselves because of it.

The world is undergoing an upheaval of awareness right now because the sheer volume of hatred is beyond the pale — one in five people visibly exhibit mental health issues — and a whopping majority (70%-80%) of families are dysfunctional.

These are staggering statistics.

We are sick, and we have to face the truth about our species because if we don’t, we will end ourselves.

Social media helps to make that happen. It’s a tool to help us heal that could not have come too soon.

We have desperately needed this dose of cold awareness about ourselves for a long time.