Bigotry....
I encountered a bigot today. Quite frankly, I was shocked. This was a woman whose personal style I admired from afar. I had anxiously awaited an opportunity to speak with her. But when she opened her mouth the most hateful bigotry spilled out.... all of that malice wrapped in such an appealing package.
I have grown accustomed to people having other political opinions than mine. After all, as an old hippy I expect to be more liberal than most.... although my liberalism does verge on consevatism. It turns out I am more pragmatic than anything else.
I have grown accustomed to people having other religious beliefs than mine. There are now so many brands of christianity that I often find I have more in common with some buddists, hindus or muslims than people said to be of my faith. I simply belong among lovers.. that is people who try to love their neighbor as they would want to be loved... and those can be found in the most unlikely places.
But I have not grown accustomed to wholesale intolerance and quite frankly I am not sure I should.
Have you looked in a dictionary lately? I looked up both bigot and prejudice before sitting down. According to Webster's, a bigot is someone who is "obstinately and intolerantly devoted to their opinions and prejudices" . Prejudice is an "adverse opionion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge". By definition, these are people who are not the least bit interested in facts.
In this case, that prejudice resulted in someone who thought that the people who were displaced by the Hurricane in New Orleans were simply too stupid or venal to leave. She felt they lived in cesspools of sin and venality before the hurricane and were now simply complaining that they didn't get their next handout quickly enough. "All they had to do was walk out." She felt conditions couldn't have been that bad for anyone willing to help themselves. What were they doing just waiting in the dome anyway?
She went on to tell of "white" foreigners who were bacpacking through America and found themselves stranded in New Orleans. She said the National Guard had told them to form a circle with baggage in the center, women in the next ring and men on the outside. At one point they became terrified because when the power went out the national guard told them they could no longer protect them.
She evidently believed that the only people in the Dome were black "trash" and that these whites were only there because they were stranded and didn't know any better. Even when told that the story was not likely to be accurate as the National Guard didn't arrive until after the power was out and that a Minnesota couple ended up in the Dome after their hotel evacuated them, she stated that we just didn't realize who "those people" were.
Evidently, the residents of nursing homes who died in record numbers in the aftermath of the hurricane were also steeped in sin and sloth since they hadn't created responsible families to remove them from danger or had selfishly outlived them. Homeowners who found themselves trapped in attics and on roofs by rising waters suffered from stupidity. I am not sure what foreigners who did not speak english suffered from other than being foreign.
Needless to say, after quietly pointing out that people without transportation really didn't have the means to leave the city and that many of the elderly and disabled were not able to walk anywhere, I backed out of that conversation. What can you say to someone who is not only unwilling to hear anything that doesn't support her opinion, but openly hostile to anyone "rude" enough to question? You can only have discourse with people who are as willing to hear your information as you are to hear theirs.
I am sure this woman is a loving mother; I heard her speak lovingly of both her children. I am sure she is charitable when she approves of the cause... certainly, she had opened her home to host a gathering of women. But her mind was closed. Is that the price of affluence?
I don't know. I have been looking at "righteous and noble" behavior lately and find that when it becomes extreme, there is often fear at it's heart. Is it simply fear at the heart of bigotry? It is not ignorance... as a little information would easily cure that. Is it some lethal combination of fear and guilt? I wish I had the answers. So much suffering could be eliminated by a little tolerance.
I encountered a bigot today. Quite frankly, I was shocked. This was a woman whose personal style I admired from afar. I had anxiously awaited an opportunity to speak with her. But when she opened her mouth the most hateful bigotry spilled out.... all of that malice wrapped in such an appealing package.
I have grown accustomed to people having other political opinions than mine. After all, as an old hippy I expect to be more liberal than most.... although my liberalism does verge on consevatism. It turns out I am more pragmatic than anything else.
I have grown accustomed to people having other religious beliefs than mine. There are now so many brands of christianity that I often find I have more in common with some buddists, hindus or muslims than people said to be of my faith. I simply belong among lovers.. that is people who try to love their neighbor as they would want to be loved... and those can be found in the most unlikely places.
But I have not grown accustomed to wholesale intolerance and quite frankly I am not sure I should.
Have you looked in a dictionary lately? I looked up both bigot and prejudice before sitting down. According to Webster's, a bigot is someone who is "obstinately and intolerantly devoted to their opinions and prejudices" . Prejudice is an "adverse opionion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge". By definition, these are people who are not the least bit interested in facts.
In this case, that prejudice resulted in someone who thought that the people who were displaced by the Hurricane in New Orleans were simply too stupid or venal to leave. She felt they lived in cesspools of sin and venality before the hurricane and were now simply complaining that they didn't get their next handout quickly enough. "All they had to do was walk out." She felt conditions couldn't have been that bad for anyone willing to help themselves. What were they doing just waiting in the dome anyway?
She went on to tell of "white" foreigners who were bacpacking through America and found themselves stranded in New Orleans. She said the National Guard had told them to form a circle with baggage in the center, women in the next ring and men on the outside. At one point they became terrified because when the power went out the national guard told them they could no longer protect them.
She evidently believed that the only people in the Dome were black "trash" and that these whites were only there because they were stranded and didn't know any better. Even when told that the story was not likely to be accurate as the National Guard didn't arrive until after the power was out and that a Minnesota couple ended up in the Dome after their hotel evacuated them, she stated that we just didn't realize who "those people" were.
Evidently, the residents of nursing homes who died in record numbers in the aftermath of the hurricane were also steeped in sin and sloth since they hadn't created responsible families to remove them from danger or had selfishly outlived them. Homeowners who found themselves trapped in attics and on roofs by rising waters suffered from stupidity. I am not sure what foreigners who did not speak english suffered from other than being foreign.
Needless to say, after quietly pointing out that people without transportation really didn't have the means to leave the city and that many of the elderly and disabled were not able to walk anywhere, I backed out of that conversation. What can you say to someone who is not only unwilling to hear anything that doesn't support her opinion, but openly hostile to anyone "rude" enough to question? You can only have discourse with people who are as willing to hear your information as you are to hear theirs.
I am sure this woman is a loving mother; I heard her speak lovingly of both her children. I am sure she is charitable when she approves of the cause... certainly, she had opened her home to host a gathering of women. But her mind was closed. Is that the price of affluence?
I don't know. I have been looking at "righteous and noble" behavior lately and find that when it becomes extreme, there is often fear at it's heart. Is it simply fear at the heart of bigotry? It is not ignorance... as a little information would easily cure that. Is it some lethal combination of fear and guilt? I wish I had the answers. So much suffering could be eliminated by a little tolerance.
posted by Joanne Brayden at 2:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home