Oddly, I forgot to cite what inspired the string of posts about prejudice a few weeks ago. An old friend of mine has had poor luck with a string of Mexican nannies and has started uttering clever, vaguely appalling things like:
I've discovered that I'm becoming rather bigoted in my advancing age. I can't decide if it's the product of the crankiness that seems to affect a lot of older people or if it's just that I'm more realistic about broad generalizations than I used to be.I have chosen to believe that it's an issue of recognizing the patterns in the data.
I'm still pissed off. I've spent more time angry at Mexicans in the past year than at the entire rest of the world in the past five years. I clearly need to dramatically readjust my expectations of this entire culture. I thought they'd already hit bottom, but it's now time to start digging. As our neighbor says, maybe it's time to start paying retail for childcare.
Comments like these make me feel a lot of things, but none so much as a squirmy "This is my friend?" and of course, the increasingly familiar old standby: "What about me makes you think it's okay to say this?"
People seem to be downright delusional about the self-evidential nature of their own prejudices. Have they no filter for their uglier thoughts? They hold forth confidently, unconcerned about people's perceptions. I'm the one abashed by shame. I shouldn't be.