Of course they avoid each other. The bluejay goes around naked all the time, while the other can’t be trusted not to steal.
Groannn!
Okay, getting serious, now. Ask them what would happen if some mad scientist type, for whatever reason, managed to manipulated them into mating. Specifically, would they have offspring? They’ll probably say no, but don’t be surprised if the scene looks like The Beverly Hillbillies trying to think of an answer to a Final Jeopardy question. If they get stuck, you can always tell them that different species like that cannot produce offspring, except for very closely related ones, and then the offspring is sterile. So it’s a reproductive dead end, either way.
Then ask them whether a black-white union could possibly produce non-sterile children.
Not entirely.
Note how often the people mentioned are referred to as old, grandfather, grandmother, etc. It’s sad that such prejudice exists, but it seems to be mainly in older people who are dying off.
Hell, years ago she embarrassed the hell out of us at a Thanksgiving gathering by telling my sister’s Nigerian friend how angry she had been when, about a year after getting married, she discovered that her new husband (our father) was one eighth native american. A slur was used that I had not heard in years and now cannot recall, but we (her children) were all struck dumb, as was the friend.
On the other hand, I have an aunt who’s in her 50’s and is the most racist person I know. For example: Christmas after my first semester of college. She asked, “Aren’t there a lot of Mexicans out there?”, “there” being…New Mexico. Had I been smart, I would’ve just walked away; I knew what was coming, but I took the bait and replied that, yes, there are a considerable number of Mexicans residing there. “You know, that would drive me crazy, living with so many of them. They’re not hard working like Americans,” she said.
Or this past Christmas (that’s the only time I see her) when the topic of the “underwear bomber” came up, and she said something along the lines of, “Well, what do you expect, letting Muslims into the country?”
Or the time she told my mother, in front of me, that mom should be ashamed that she was raising such an “unfeminine” daughter - if I had to be so involved in sports, it should be field hockey or something “gender appropriate.” I said I didn’t want to play field hockey and much preferred my martial arts, thankyouverymuch, and she assured me that, ten years later, I’d regret it when I was still single. (It’s been about ten years, btw, and I’m both single and quite happy that way.)
Or the time she commented that if gay people would just be straight, there wouldn’t be any problems.
So…it’s not just people who are about to shuffle off. (And actually, my 88-year-old grandmother has at times basically told this aunt to shut up.)
Just a quick contrast to the “jerkish old people” thing: When I was about ten years old or so, my grandfather (a WWII vet) was reading me a children’s storybook which was published in oh, about, 1942. While it was normally just a standard cute talking animals thing, it had a chapter that used the word “Jap.” My grandfather stopped dead in his tracks and explained very seriously that I should never, ever, under any circumstances, use that word. I didn’t really understand why at the time, but disappointing my grandfather was absolutely unthinkable. I just knew that it was really important to him. (He was probably the kindest of the many kind people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. I wanna be him when I grow up.)
We now return to your regularly scheduled bigotry.
Not so much as a pit, because I love my siblings, and they’re 99% wonderful. It’s just this 1% that is their homophobia.
My sister’s always been religious, and my brother became “born again” just before I got big enough to get back at him for 12 years of big brother teasing.
One day, when I was in college and my brother lived with me, he took me aside to show me some Bible verses that condemned homosexuality of the men of Sodom. (Genesis 19, specifically the part that says, “bring them out unto us, that we may know them.” Which never sounded like homosexuality to me. Never mind that Lot offered his daughters to be raped. [Gee, Lot, your daughters are also “under the shadow of my roof”.]) I’m not sure exactly what brought this on. Did he think I was gay? Dunno. Maybe that two of my best friends were girls. Perhaps if I’d told him I’d just as soon jump them as be their friends, he would’ve laid off.
(Years later, my new brother-in-law, also born-again, wrote me a letter about the “heathens” that my wife and I were having in our wedding party. Who, the Jewish couple? The black woman? He’d never even met me or any of my friends. Ah, but that’s another pit.)
Then a couple of weeks ago, some friends and I were discussing Star Trek in a form, when my sister and I had this exchange:
That last sentence was my main point. My second, that my sister didn’t get, was it doesn’t @!#?@! matter who the actor is, if he or she entertains you, that should be it. You don’t need to be frowny-faced (" ") about his life; he seems OK about it.
To parallel your statement: Just because you’re Christian doesn’t not make you a hypocritical bigot. I thought Christians loved unconditionally.
And just to add you the list for your consideration, other gay actors playing beloved, ostensibly straight characters:
Dick Sargent - the second Darrin Stevens (“Bewitched”)
David Ogden Stiers - Chalres Emerson Winchester III (“MAS*H”)
Meredith Baxter - Elyse Keaton (“Family Ties”)
Roger C. Carmel - Harry Mudd (“Star Trek”), the first Roger Buell (“The Mothers-in-Law”)
Amanda Bearse - Marcy Rhodes D’Arcy (“Married With Children”)
Rock Hudson - Stewart McMillan (“McMillan and Wife”)
Straight actors playing beloved, obviously gay characters:
Billy Crystal - Jodie Dallas (“Soap”)
Eric McCormack - Will Truman (“Will & Grace”)
Philip Charles MacKenzie - Donald Maltby (“Brothers”)
The general level of intelligence in my family is off the charts. I mean, my little brother was using words like ‘serendipity’ when he was six. He might literally be a genius. My mom and sister are both equally as smart.
So in general I have never had any major ‘forehead-slapping’ moments. But when I was back home a few Xmas’ ago, my mom actually noted with concern in her voice that she was dismayed to find herself more and more narrow-minded when it came to the increasing numbers of Middle Eastern people she was dealing with. She talked about how she was making a conscientious effort to not lump everyone looking ‘middle eastern’ in with the two or three bad examples she happen to run into - but getting burned each time when the next such person would turn out to be yet another bad example.
It scared my mom; I could see it in her eyes. Her mom - my grandmother - was extremely racist, and long harbored grudges against any and all people for what she viewed as transgressions - some real, some not. In fairness, my grandma was in her own way an amazing, brave person, but open-mindnesses when it came to skin color wasn’t her strong suit. And i could see my mom worried that as she got older she was getting more narrow-minded.
I didn’t quite know what to tell her. I know my mom didn’t have a prejudiced bone in her body when I was growing up (or if she did, she did an amazing acting job for 40 years). Can people become -less- openminded as they get older?
Although - after hearing my sister describe some of the incidents that occured with my mom, I can see how easy it would be to start drawing conclusions…
My cousin’s husband says all the time how “embarrassing” it is to him that “all his relatives” are marrying “every dirty, useless Spic in the world, one country at a time.” You know, because his sister married someone from Columbia, and his wife has a sister who married a lovely Nicaraguan man that she met in the Peace Corps, and because his wife has a cousin who married a guy whose parents were born in Ecuador, and because another of his wife’s cousins (that would be me) married a “lazy, stupid, illegal” Mexican. We’re all skanks with “serious psychological problems” and our husbands should be “deported for worthlessness.”
Never find that the Columbian is an EMT and a volunteer fireman, or that the Nicaraguan works as a translator for the county and is training to become an ESL teacher, or that the Ecuadoran was born in New York and his parents worked hard to become American citizens, or that the Mexican is an engineer whose his family has lived in California since the late 1800s. They’re all still “dirty, useless,” “lazy, stupid,” and/or “illegal.” Oh, and they’re trying to “breed the rest of us right out of our homes.”
This comes from a guy who has six children (the rest of us have three, combined, and my one child is adopted), no college education, no job, a drug and gambling problem, and is a twice-convicted felon (auto theft and bank robbery).
") about his life; he seems OK about it.