I don’t believe that just because a minority bleaches their hair or marries a white person that they hate themselves. (But I’ll give you the Barry Manilow point.)
you’re absolutely correct. but a large percentage of people of color who hate themselves have bleached hair and white spouses. these are just a couple of “warning signs” that might be used to identify them.
sorry to belabor this point; i just wanted to clarify and avoid offending anybody out there.
This is like the holy holy rabbi who was so holy that he fasted every day.
“But I just saw him eating”!?!
“Yes, but besides for being so holy he is also very humble. He only eats so that people should not know that he is really fasting”.
If these people do not dislike minorities, and don’t mind hanging around with them, then in what way are they bigots?
I think that one point that has been overlooked in this thread is the different connotations of the term bigot. If a person hates minorities, they are are unlikely to be friends with them. But a person may be not at all antagonistic to minorities, but merely hold certain stereotypes to be true. In this instance, they might well have no objection at all to being friendly with minorities in person.
What blurs the issue is the fact that once labels achieve a certain powerful connotation, people like to bandy them about. This tends to blur meaningful distinctions. Sometimes a set of views can be attributed to “racism”, in which case the “my best friends” defence may be used, as a means of proving that the views do not derive from bigotry.
This is not to say that your point is never valid. A person who dislikes, say, black people, may dislike the mannerisms or attitudes of black people, and being comfortable with an “Uncle Tom”, emphasize this fact. In fact, Polycarp and a few others appear to serve in a similar capacity on this board, as regards to religion. But I think there’s more to it, as mentioned.
Hello all. First, I’d like to say how novel it feels to have this discussion here in GD – a forum into which I seldom venture. It’s fun seeing the names of posters I’ve never seen before.
Since I started this, I’ve got a few follow-ups and comments to add.
First, I think that many of you are presuming that the accused is a bigot and therefore you’re trying to prove that his/her statement (“Some of my best friends…”) is invalid or worthless or outright false. That’s not the scenario – and my apologies if the OP was unclear in that regard.
The scenerio is this:
A person who is accused of being a biggot – only accused, mind you – defends him/herself with the above statement. His/her statement is discarded out of hand – if not mocked outright. Why?
Shouldn’t this defense, like any other defense – and the accusation, for that matter – be weighed before it’s thrown out? And if it’s true, shouldn’t it count to the accuser’s benefit?
Here’s what I think. I think that it should count – if it’s true. After all, compare it to other, “valid” defenses. Since there is no such thing as mindreading (uh, oh… time for another GD thread!) they must all rely on actions and speech. Is association with friends not action and speech, too? Frankly I think it is a pretty genuine indication of sentiments – much more so than the routine politically correct lip service most people spout.
I also think that some time during the civil rights era zealots grabbed the phrase and brainwashed everyone into thinking that it had absolutely no merit. (They did the same thing with the concept of “state’s rights”; they made it seem that there was absolutely no such thing as good state’s rights and anyone who felt otherwise was an instant bigot.)
It’s time we gave the old “Some of my best friends…” defense another look. I think it’s been unfairly treated by ignorant, knee-jerk finger-pointers over the years.
Some of my favorite relatives are black. That doesn’t mean I am not racist. I don’t think I am; I don’t want to be. It certainly doesn’t stop my sister-in-law from being a racist. Last I saw she doted on her niece who is of a different race not 15 minutes after making nasty racist comments.
Racism is not logical. Just because racists have friends of different races does not prevent them from believing rather odious things about large groups of people. For most racist it just means their friend is somehow special and rose above the circumstance of their race. Ever hear a racist talk about someone being a good black? As if there are a select few that are somehow worth mixing with real people and the rest are the ones they hate. Sickening, but people talk and live and believe such claptrap.
Mostly because it has been used as a knee-jerk defense by bigots over the years.
You are entirely correct that the PC crowd can be guilty of laying the blame too quickly on some people for using various catch-word phrases without discovering the intent of the author. However, as with the poster I mentioned earlier, the “Some of my best friends are (or my spouse is)…” defense is regularly trotted out by people who are deeply prejudiced to the point of bigotry.
In this medium, we have only our words to carry our points. We have already seen that a significant number of people who use the “Some of my best friends…” defense
a) are bigots who simply rationalize their association with individuals in their alienated class
or
b) are bigots who lie about their association with some members of the alienated class.
Using a catch-phrase associated with the cognitively dissonant or liars is not a good way in this medium to convey an adequate defense.
If, having put out the defense, every other statement they make must be qualified by “but…”, then perhaps they need to re-evaluate their views (or at least find a more ingenious way of making their point).
Well stuyguy, why was this hypothetical person accused of being a bigot in the first place? If the accusation is “I think you’re a bigot because you don’t have any white friends.” Then “some of my best friends are white.” is a valid response.
If the accusation arises from statements such as “White people suck! I can’t stand them.” Then saying some of your best friends are white is not going to help your cause.
I think it’s a weak defense, but a valid defense nonetheless. Assuming, of course, that the person really does have friends from the particular group being discussed.
People like thinking in simple terms. It’s easier than the alternative. That’s why some people think that you are either a bigot, or you are completely free from prejudice, and there is no middle ground. I believe it is possible to not be a bigot, but to harbor some racial stereotypes.
For example, a person might seriously think that all white people are rich snobs. Nevertheless, that person might have white friends. The fact that this person believes a stereotype like that counts against them; the fact that they are able to overlook that stereotype and like particular white people counts for them.
Indeed, you might say that Person A, who believes that All people of group X have some bad trait, having a good friend of group X, is no more bigoted than a Person B, who has good friends from group X but does not people they all have some bad trait. Person A, in this case, is not bigoted; he or she is merely ignorant.
rushtopher said:
Yup, that’s a classic, too.
When I lived at my previous house, a few years ago, I didn’t really know many of the neighbors outside just the ones next door (we were on a corner and not really part of any ‘street’). Anyway, there was a neighborhood meeting about some issues affecting all of us, and I went. Afterwards, people sat around talking for a while. A few of the folks started saying things almost exactly like what you quoted above. I came home and told my wife, “It’s time to move outta here.”
cantrip said:
Well, for one thing, we were friends before I knew. So the “bond” was already there. Certainly, if I had encountered them on, say, a message board without knowing them beforehand, I doubt we would have become friends.
And, yes, their thinking on this matter is flawed. But they are good-hearted people who I would trust to watch (though not raise ;)) my children.
Thank you. I really could have even used “anti-religious” as my example, above; a few people (some still on the SDMB, some not) have made this untrue accusation about me as well when they were losing debates about one thing or another.
Yup. It is not something we discuss. One of them does occasionally bring it up, and I usually try to let it slide by or somehow deflect it. I know that is truly what they believe and no amount of my logic or science is going to change their minds. I also know that they both get easily upset in arguments.
No problem. Hey, I was the one who brought it up. 
woodstockbirdybird wrote in a different thread:
I just rolled my eyes and thought, “Yeah. I bet.”
So. If one is “accused” of being a bigot, what sort of things would be a worthwhile refutation of that?
And what is being ‘accused of being a bigot’, anyway? Other than mud-slinging, for political purposes. I can see being ‘accused’ of not following the law, e.g. Equal Opportunity, in housing, jobs, etc., but hopefully we’re not trying to legislate attitudes or worse yet, prejudices?
Seems pretty much like a waste of effort, if we did. It’s hard for some folks to see how much their attitude costs them, but you can’t FORCE someone to become more enlightened or open-minded. However much you might really WANT to… 
I’m pretty sure that the context of the OP is basically in regards to posting on a message board. The defense, then, would be to outline a clear definition of principles and the policies that proceed from those principles without claiming “Oh, but I have friends in this group that I am disparaging.”
We have posters, here, who will look at any challenge to AA as de facto signs of “bigotry” and we have posters who look at any attempt to prevent the furtherance of discriminataion as signs of “PC bullshit.”
Those posters don’t move the discussion along very far (although they can carry threads into multiple pages). Ignoring the carping cynics on either side, there is room to discuss and disagree in the middle without bringing out the bigotry/PC guns.
However, if one’s posts tend to look like Gov. Faubus wrote them, claiming friendship is probably not an adequate defense that one’s views are not shaped by prejudice.
I think we are all racists to some degree, but only a few of us are bigots. My best friend in high school was black(why do I feel so reticent to mention that), but back in 1982, leaving Bourbon Street in New Orleans, heading down to the Hilton Hotel on an abandoned Canal St. early in the morning, my wife and I had to walk by 4 black young men who stopped talking as we approached. I was scared shitless. When it became clear that they weren’t going to try anything I got the adreneline shakes.I was confronted with my own racism. I was tested and I failed.If only they were wearing jackets and ties. But I know I am no bigot.Bigotry is a choice that I despise. It predisposes own group of people over another.
Now my friendship in high school may not be meaningful to you, but it does reassure me.
…because it is trite, hackneyed, and so old that it has itself become a stereotypical attribute of the stereotypical bigot.
A truly non-bigoted person, when accused of bigotry, will instantly recognize that the accusation is coming from a place of ignorance (ignorance of the person’s character, at the very least), and will not dignify it with a direct contradiction. A clear thinker will probe his accuser’s reasons for calling him a bigot. The reasons given can be presented only in good faith or in bad faith. If they are in good faith, the accused should be able to defend his non-bigotry in a way that reduces the ignorance of his accuser. If the reasons are in bad faith, he should be able to establish that fact in fairly short order, after which he is justified in refusing to continue discussing the issue with the accuser.
The point is, a person who is not a bigot can easily defend himself against a baseless charge of bigotry without resorting to hackneyed, self-parodying straight lines. For this to be a person’s first choice of defensive “arguments” tends to suggest that the charge is neither easily defended, nor baseless.
Hold on, what am I being accused of? I stand by my remarks in that thread, and don’t think the point of this OP is the same thing. I didn’t start out saying, “teachers are {generalized insult},” and then when somebody called me on it, use as a defense, “but some of my best friends are teachers…”. No. I said that just because someone’s a teacher doesn’t necessarily make them “smarter than most”, the original poster’s claim. He was the one making a generalized statement. I pointed out that I’ve known a few educators who aren’t too bright. I also pointed out (possibly in a defensive manner, but I know how quick people are to jump on things in GD) that this didn’t make me biased against teachers. The only examples I could think of were from real life. So sue me. I suppose I could have just said “I’ve known a few incredibly smart teachers too” and saved myself the drama of being singled out here. However, I didn’t think my remark constituted an attack on an entire group of people, so it didn’t seem to me that the justification I offered was an attempt to have it both ways. And BTW, my mom and friends really areteachers, and I respect them, not so much because of what they do, but because of who they are (in fact, I almost wish my mom hadn’t been a teacher - it’s hard to have fun in the house when you’re a teenager when your mother has all the same days off and vacations as you do). So maybe I was wrong to qualify my remark. Knee-jerk reaction, I apologize for the political incorrectness of it. But you were wrong to try and lump me in with the racists and hatemongers being discussed in this thread for it.
Sorry, woodstock. I was only kidding. Written strictly “tongue-in-cheek.” Just thought it was kinda ironic. Please don’t feel the need to defend yourself…
:o = embarressed.
Svin
By the way, I certainly didn’t mean to lump you in with a bunch of racists or hatemongers.
:o :o = doubly embarressed.
No harm done, Sven. Just don’t let it happen again. 
Of course, I meant Svin.
Now I’m embarrassed.