A Dirty Little Secret

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

We all keep secrets of one kind or another. There are good secrets and bad secrets. The example of a good secret might be not telling your sister-in-law that she's no longer built to wear shorts. A bad secret to keep could be that you saw one of her kids stealing money out of her purse.

Your poor sister-in-law would be embarrassed and possibly hurt if she heard you say, "You're too fat to wear shorts," or "Your kid's a thief."

Keeping secret #1 is probably going to be easier than secret #2 because you figure no one will get hurt if she wears shorts, but the thieving kid's behavior could escalate and land them in jail or worse, they could get themselves shot in the commission of a burglary.

It's a judgment call than no one likes to make. Who wants to get on the bad side of their sister-in-law? Your brother, her husband, might never speak to you again, and a family feud will be spawned - like the Hatfields and the McCoys, one of the best-known family feuds in the U.S.; that feud went on for generations.

Fortunately for you and I this isn't going to be a problem, right? We're not into hurting people's feelings or policing other people's kids.

But what about that dirty little secret only you know about yourself, the one you would prefer that the neighbors didn't know: That you're a bigot.

Let's examine the following scenarios:

- If there was only one seat left on the bus and it was next to a black person, you would find a reason to stand all the way home instead of taking that seat.

- If your boss handed you expensive theater tickets to see "Schindler's List" you would graciously decline them because you don't believe six million Jews were killed in the so-called holocaust and you don't need to some Jew-controlled Hollywood studio production to try and convince you otherwise.

- You wonder if the Muslim woman noticed the hair stand up on your arm when you moved past her in the grocery store aisle.

- You want your kid to play on a different baseball team because he'll never get to play since the coach has all those other bigger black kids to put in the games.

I could go on with plenty of other examples of how you hide your prejudice and only let it out when you're among your own kind, that is, people who feel just like you do.

You feel safe because you think that no one can tell you're a bigot; it's not like you get an obvious rash, or a pronounced limp. And, of course, no one knows that your heart skips a beat or two when you think one of "them" is getting what's coming to them.

I've got news for you, Bunky, you're not kidding anybody. I know your dirty little secret and if I get the chance I'm going to blab it all over the place. My dirty little secret is that I'm going to enjoy turning you in and watching you squirm in front of all those other people who think you're a good and decent person.

Bigotry is a cancer. It's an ugly tumor that, instead of being excised, usually gets fostered and fomented and even encouraged to grow.

If you have this cancer, this bigotry, please get some help for yourself. Just like you quit smoking or looking at dirty magazines when no one is home, you can become a whole human being, one worthy of being made in God's image.

But if you think there's nothing wrong with you just remember that you are trying to keep your bigotry a secret for a reason. Just like a thief or a pedophile doesn't want anyone to know what they are really like and what they'll likely do when nobody is watching, you will do what you have to do to keep your dirty little secret.

I remember the time I told a friend that I was prejudiced, that I didn't like stupid people. Said friend called me a snob. That bothered me for a while but then I realized that I had made a conscious decision to be offended by stupidity, and even embarrassed when it's my own.

I'll grant you that it's a judgment call but one of the responsibilities of being a member of a society is to police one's own behavior and, if need be, the behavior of other members. And, yes, it is my job to pass judgment. Does it bother me sometimes? Sure it does, but I didn't say it was going to be easy.

The good news is that you can kick the bigotry habit if you want to. You can train yourself to look at others the way you want them to see you, as a blood-and-bone human being.

The real secret is that - except for your bigotry - you're just like everyone else.