We have to become masters at exploiting pain

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. I don't think history backs you on that

The horrors of industrial child labor were tolerated for decades before the "muckrakers" of the time cast sufficient light on it, and then a movement to reform it took shape. Conditions in Jim Crow South were no better or worse before King and his allies devised their civil disobedience campaign that put those conditions on display in typical American living rooms.

Of course there is some truth in what you say. Some people do react the way you describe, always have and always will. Some of them are invested in seeing the world that way, others are easily manipulated by their fears. But it doesn't take a third of the population opening up their eyes to make a difference. Five or ten percent easily enough to make a huge difference.