Dear majority, please stop telling me you stand with me

Two years ago Umair Haque wrote:

I hear it a dozen times a day. “Don’t worry!” say the kind and good people. “We’ll stand with you when the registries/camps/oppression come!”
What a noble sentiment. It is supposed to reassure people like me  —  a disabled brown guy. And yet. It doesn’t. Why not?
Let’s do some quick moral accounting, so we can see whether this grand declaration of solidarity carries any water.
Every single minority of any kind can tell you stories. Not just one, but many. Of being ridiculed, tormented, heckled, harassed, bullied, demeaned. From the very day that they entered the classroom, the playground, the boardroom, the office, the bus, the train, the cafe, the restaurant.

Haque does not resort to the easy condemnations progressives deploy — you’re evil because you’re white, able-bodied, privileged — but because as a member of the mainstream, the CW, the Conventional Wisdom tacitly allows you to discriminate without fearing any consequences; and you haven’t thought about it. You didn’t know you were doing it.

Well, you were, it was wrong, stop it. Haque continues:

Every single person — whether they are a woman, a person of color, a disabled person, gay, whatever — can tell you about countless incidents of abuse, big and small. There is not a single minority in this country that hasn’t experienced it.
Now. Where have you been, the good and kind majority, when all this was going on? There are three possibilities — and only three. You turned a blind eye. You egged it on. Or you were part of it. The incidents happened, right? So by definition, you did nothing to stop them, prevent them, mitigate them, ameliorate them.
You didn’t step in then. The millions of thens. And now you tell me that you will finally step in? Am I to believe this with a straight face?

Unfortunately, in the case of derogatory remarks, slights, or other discriminatory treatment, the mainstream responds to slurs or other expressions of social disapproval with the attitude, Why are you always embarrassing us? Why don’t you have the social skills to handle these situations? Why are you such a loser? Umair Haque adds:

The sentiment that “I will stand with you!” is just that. A sentiment. It is not a reality. You haven’t done it so far. So why would you start now? … But how good have you really been? As I said, you’ve failed to stand with me, us, a million times before, every single day of your life. ...
We got here precisely through the way of your negligence, and no other way. Through all these little dehumanizations. The grade school bully that cries “kike!” is not so different from a Trump. You stood by and watched then. Maybe you laughed. That is how we got here.
So how do we heal? We heal not by avoiding the truth, running away from the painful reality of our mistakes. But by facing them. ... I don’t want your kind sentiments. I don’t want to hear that you will stand with me when we both know you haven’t so far. I want something truer and harder. The admission, the acknowledgement that you did not, could not, would not, when you should have.