Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it’s interesting how many responses to this comment seem to have interpreted it fairly differently to my own reading. There are many responding about “ignoring racism,” “whitewashing,” or the importance of calling out bigotry. I’m not sure how that follows from a comment that literally calls out the racism and describes it as “unambiguous.” Striving to “avoid the ugliness” in your own life does not mean ignor…
Generally the idiom "like family" implies very close and durable bonds of friendship and loyalty. That you'd drive several hours to help them bury a body, if they asked. The idiomatic use is a much higher standard than literal family - members of the same family can hate each other. As jchallis used the idiomatic term in the latter, more literal sense, I can understand people getting confused.
Well... one cannot choose family for one is always bound to them by biology. Does that matter? No. One's life is more than that. One can leave family in the dust, a choice many of Adam's targets had to make to continue living, while others never even got to make that choice. Either way, equating (and let's be frank: most often elevating) yesterday's "hero" to family status certainly is a choice.
In this spirit: "Here's a nickel kid, buy yourself a better eulogy."