Does bigotry make you stupid, or vice-versa?

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

Oh, and EVERY culture is biased/bigoted/prejudiced.  EVERY one of them.  I do not know of one that isn't.

!!!

[Jenne]

Oh, and EVERY culture is biased/bigoted/prejudiced.  EVERY one of them.  I do not know of one that isn't.

!!!

I only said that because the OP was about American culture.  But truth be told, I've encountered more outright bigotry in my husband's culture.  I'm talking, getting out of a car and loudly proclaiming in English, "THERE'S SO MANY MEXICANS HERE!  LOOK AT ALL THE MEXICANS THERE ARE!" at a swapmeet near the Mexican border.  And my father-in-law, who's been here since 1970, saying, "Oh, you're Mexican?  The guy who does my gardening is Mexican," to one of our friends in my kitchen at my kid's birthday party.

It's innate in them, I think.  And hard to root-out, because they truly believe there's nothing wrong with thinking Iranians put poo in their food, and Arabs kill their women ritualistically because, well, they're Arabs, they just do that over there.

It's rather sickening and sad to listen to.

And you don't want to hear what they say about gays.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So how do we invite them to get over The Stupid?

Bigotry, I think is the easiest thing to change in our current situation.

My grandma was racist. She was very, very racist. When my Mom studied with a black guy after school one day, Grandma had my Uncles beat the kid.

A few years ago I was visiting grandma and she shocked me. One of her daughters had married a redneck asshole that beat her, beat the kids, did hard and expensive drugs, spent most of his time unemployed etc. Grandma's best friend has a daughter the same age. She married a black guy and has had a wonderful marriage. Grandma went on and on about this guy and how she wished that my Aunt would have married a 'good black man' rather than Uncle Larry.

Bigots, tend to fear what they don't know and they lose that fear once they gain knowledge that contradicts their bigotry. Believers, on the other hand, well, there's nothing anyone can do to prove that abortion isn't murder (hell, it might be, I dunno)...

The whining that he's Muslim, black, etc etc will disappear, I think. The whining that he's a liberal bent on destroying the Moral Fiber of God's Own Country... that may not disappear so easily.

If you were Obama, how would you plan on getting most of the country back together after what we've been through?

[Jenne]

Well, education and RE-education are always part of the process.  After all, I married an Afghan Muslim who's a DOCTOR.  But, you know, he could have just as easily been a gas station worker or prison guard. ETA because that comment needs explaining--it was EASIER on my dad's part to accept my husband as my  husband since he's educated and comes from money--but eventually his "otherness" is also eradicated just by getting to know him as well...being a doctor and rich just made it that much faster a process, I guess.

The point is, re-education also takes some willingness to re-learn what is innate in a cultural setting.  The "deep South" as we call it has "deep roots," and digging those out requires a will to do so.  I don't see a lot of movement that way amongst the older generations without a lot of accommodation first.  And even then, they'll do so grudgingly and not always irreversably.

I was Obama, I'd make sure education was the penultimate priority for this country.  After that, health care.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I was Obama, I'd make sure education was the penultimate priority for this country.  After that, health care.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I was Obama, I'd make sure education was the penultimate priority for this country.  After that, health care.

OK, Jenne, you know I like you so I hate to say this... but you should look up "penultimate" and then re-read what you said, 'cause it's TEH FUNNAY.

[Manta Obscura]

I was Obama, I'd make sure education was the penultimate priority for this country.  After that, health care.

OK, Jenne, you know I like you so I hate to say this... but you should look up "penultimate" and then re-read what you said, 'cause it's TEH FUNNAY.

Her statement is still syntactically sound. Maybe she was really talking about her view of priorities 

(Sorry, Jenne; hope you don't mind me razzing you a bit)

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

Oh, and EVERY culture is biased/bigoted/prejudiced.  EVERY one of them.  I do not know of one that isn't.

!!!

And you don't want to hear what they say about gays.

Don't stop now

[Jenne]

Woops--I meant the opposite of penultimate, obviously. 

Though, Nigel, remind me to go around to every one of your goddammed posts and make fun of you when I'm feeling bitchy.  Gotta feel comfortable around here again, and YOUR recent posts are making my ass twitch.

I say this with all the love in my heart, of course.

[Jenne]

I was Obama, I'd make sure education was the penultimate priority for this country.  After that, health care.

OK, Jenne, you know I like you so I hate to say this... but you should look up "penultimate" and then re-read what you said, 'cause it's TEH FUNNAY.

Her statement is still syntactically sound. Maybe she was really talking about her view of priorities 

(Sorry, Jenne; hope you don't mind me razzing you a bit)

No, it's fine.  It's what one comes to expect around here.  I usually use my words my carefully, but I was a little het up yesterday in sharing that about my family...it's the elephant in the living room about my great-grandmother's incident and the man who was murdered by a whole town for it.

But whatever, ha ha hee hee ho ho away.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Woops--I meant the opposite of penultimate, obviously. 

Though, Nigel, remind me to go around to every one of your goddammed posts and make fun of you when I'm feeling bitchy.  Gotta feel comfortable around here again, and YOUR recent posts are making my ass twitch.

I say this with all the love in my heart, of course.

Now, now, I only made fun of ONE of your posts! And you have to admit, your unintentional miswording WAS funny.

The rest of the stuff, the political stuff, hopefully you don't take personally. I do have very strong opinions on both political and religious proselytizing, and I've butted heads with people over it here before. I am not going to sit quietly while idealists insist they have the One True and Only Right Way.

Also, I was in a particularly good mood yesterday.

Also, if you can't go back four generations and find an ugly bigoted incident in your family somewhere, you're doin' it wrong. People are terrible creatures, and they do terrible things to each other. Everyone thinks their history is unique and special, but the horrible thing is, it isn't. Speaking as a minority woman most of whose immigrant ancestors (which was a little over half of them) arrived in this country several centuries ago, I am not particularly impressed by your personal family connection to a lynching a century ago.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, but speaking of family ties to ugly bigoted violence, if you want to play the "I have an emotional reason to take bigotry personally" card, my brother-in-law, who was also my close friend, was attacked and beaten nearly to death in his apartment about eleven years ago. He was not expected to survive: he was in a coma for several weeks. His skull was broken in several places, he had severe brain damage, most of his teeth were knocked out, his cheekbones were pulverized. He was unrecognizable. In the end, he survived for eight more years and had numerous reconstructive surgeries to try to give him back a face. He lost one eye and the hearing in one ear. The brain aneurysm that killed him may or may not have been related to the beating.

The punchline? It was his boyfriend who did it, and the reason he tried to kill him was that he hated himself for being gay, and blamed Jim.

Simple cultural ignorance is so much easier to deal with than the bigotry of insecurity and self-loathing. The  two are related, yes, but it's also true that it's a lot more complex than "bigots are dumb, lol".

[Cain]

Agreed, on your last paragraph Nigel.  I like to refer to it as a complex situation.  Some bigots are stupid.  But what do we make of men of science and philosophy, who nevertheless being certifiable geniuses, are otherwise bigoted in some quite nasty ways (anti-Semitic philosophers, the crude assertions of superiority by Enlightenment thinkers, scientists who support the worst sort of eugenics, etc)

That's why I like this exploration of the relationship.  As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I'm like a cultural anthropologist of the conspiracy subculture.  And it is very interesting to watch how otherwise rational people with somewhat kooky beliefs generally lose contact with reality and descend into the sort of world where they end up advocating atrocities based on their own prejudices, by coming up with the most tenuous and mind-numbingly stupid links between disparate persons and events.

Again in terrorism we can see this disconnect.  Lots of terrorists are highly intelligent, more so than the average population.  However they become socialized to certain prejudices as part of their radicalization.

[Elder Iptuous]

But what do we make of men of science and philosophy, who nevertheless being certifiable geniuses, are otherwise bigoted in some quite nasty ways (anti-Semitic philosophers, the crude assertions of superiority by Enlightenment thinkers, scientists who support the worst sort of eugenics, etc)

I was wondering when this was going to be pointed out in this thread.  (i didn't want to step in it though)  That is to say; bigotry is not inherently linked with stupidity.  It's always complicated. 

As an aside, what does one make of intolerance for racial separatists?

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

But what do we make of men of science and philosophy, who nevertheless being certifiable geniuses, are otherwise bigoted in some quite nasty ways (anti-Semitic philosophers, the crude assertions of superiority by Enlightenment thinkers, scientists who support the worst sort of eugenics, etc)

I was wondering when this was going to be pointed out in this thread.  (i didn't want to step in it though)  That is to say; bigotry is not inherently linked with stupidity.  It's always complicated. 

As an aside, what does one make of intolerance for racial separatists?

     The intolerance(s) held by racial separatists or the intolerances toward racial separatists?