the racist friend I never knew I had & now don't

Tonight I found out that someone who has been a long time friend is a racist.  Not the type of ignorant person who was alive before the atomic bomb and still uses outdated language, but someone very much my own age.  A person in their thirties, who was being very serious, who knew what they were saying and did so with a purpose in a very clear way.

Being racist or homophobic says a lot about a person’s character.  It says that with all the information available they still choose to stay ignorant.  It says that they choose not to have empathy for anyone who is not like them.  It says that they have more room in their heart for hatred than for love.  And it says that without achieving anything of importance they already feel superior to other human beings simply for having been born the way they were.

I do not ask for the people in my life to be tolerant, after all tolerance is just a slightly more polite way of disapproving.  Instead I expect them to be accepting.  To appreciate that people are born a variety of different ways, none of which take away from any other.  Ideally I hope they also share my curiosity about the other lives on this planet and my belief that our uniqueness is something to be celebrated.

Being a caucasian, heterosexual, middle-class Canadian I have to be honest and say that I have never been on the receiving end of that sort of hatred.  I have seen people I love be its target and it never gets less shocking.  What I do know is how it makes me feel, and that is betrayed and ashamed.

Humanity is not a choice, being an asshole is.