Generic Bigotry

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and our President has declared he is not a racist.  He also has used the term “shithole” for countries filled with poor non-Anglos.  Right.  He is a racist and a bigot and like many folks I know does not know and does not believe he is one.

It is simple, really.  If one claims to know and like members of an identifiable minority then one has accomplished nothing more than anyone else.  Everyone knows and likes people they know and like.  Duh.  If you know a gay person and think of him or her as a friend, good for you.  Same is true for a Black person, or a Hispanic person, or if you respect the talents and abilities of a female person, or if you are a Christian and know and like an atheist, or if you know and like an Arab or a Muslim, then good for you.  You have accomplished nothing of any significance at all other than admitting that you know and like the people you know and like.  You should not do those people the disservice of attempting to ride their friendship and their label into a claimed state of open-minded tolerance and support.  Your bigotry is not based on those you know and like.  If you say, “I have Black friends,” or gay friends or Arab friends you are not off the hook.  Your bigotry is based on a state of prejudicial opinion for an entire group of folks you do not know.  Generic bigotry is real and dangerous bigotry. 

Generic bigotry allows the bigot to make assumptions about identifiable groups and apply those assumptions to isolated individuals from that group.  If you see a group of protestors and in that group are African Americans and you use those individuals to confirm your negative thoughts about Black people, then you are a bigot.  If you picture welfare recipients as lazy Blacks when you see a Black woman using food stamps then you are a bigot.  If you see a Muslim woman with her face and head covered and use that image to confirm what you think of Muslims you are a bigot.  If you racially profile anyone you are a bigot. 

If you think of poor countries where most of the people are not Anglo as shithole countries you are a bigot and racist of the worst degree.  It will not occur to you that poor people are people too, that non-White people are people too, that non-heterosexual people are people too, that non-Christian people are people too, and that there is likely some other bigot somewhere who counts all those individuals as friends and exempt from their own generic bigotry. 

In fact, if you discover you are a generic bigot you cannot claim the title of a good person, much less a religious person.  Tolerance, love, understanding and support for the downtrodden, the sick, the hungry, the forlorn is the hallmark of goodness.  To disparage any group as a group is a source of evil, in my opinion, and should trigger significant soul-searching rather than defensive search for verification of the bigotry.  Bigotry of any sort is anti-human and diminishes the humanity of the bigot.  Bigotry is likely grounded in fear, perhaps anger, perhaps selfishness.  But bigotry is surely not grounded in fact, reality, empathy, love, tolerance or any other worthy human characteristic.

The flip side of generic bigotry, of course, is to assume that only a certain group of people are superior to other people.  All other people.  White supremacists simply announce they are bigots regarding everyone who does not meet their very narrow racial criteria.  They are equally evil.

Yes, I see Trump as a bigot, a racist and a White supremacist.  I see him as an evil person.  And in doing so admit I am a generic bigot against those who think as he thinks.  This post is one of my humble efforts to reach out and help members of the racist groups.  Rather than stereotype those groups and write them off I prefer to open their eyes. 

I believe using generic bigotry to help and support the identifiable group is an act of goodness, not evil.  Banning them, belittling them, and building walls against them are all evil acts grounded in bigotry, not economics.