Are we more bigoted than in the past, or has it simply become more public?

I don’t think we’re more bigoted. When I compare my high school culture (mid ‘70s) to that of my kids (‘00s), I’m very heartened. I once asked my kids if they ever see anyone picked on because of sexual orientation, and they looked at me as if I had a booger hanging. In my school, gay bashing was almost as popular as football.

I think bigotry is becoming more marginalized, and the very visible public manifestations of bigotry that have been flaring up are a reaction to that marginalization. Bigotry used to be taken as the norm; you could be bigoted and still be a respectable member of society. Now there’s pushback to bigotry. It can get you in trouble. The remnants of the culture of bigotry resent their loss of acceptability and try to reassert their relevance.

Thank you, @thorninmud. Your ideas had occurred to me, and I’m glad to see them begin this thread. I, too, see bigotry on the decline, but there is so much of it in evidence, I began to question my perception.

Things have unquestionably improved, at least out in the open where such nonsense is no longer tolerated, and more importantly, no longer taught.

We’re a more diverse and multicultural society than ever before and it isn’t a place in which bigots can thrive. It isn’t acceptable to pick on people because of their religion or their sexuality any longer. The police shootings of blacks would hardly have been commented on in the past now it is a major news story. These changes have happened in my lifetime and it is a very good thing.

In the past you either encountered someone this way or you read their comments in the newspaper. Now the bigots can spew their hate and ignorance anywhere they please on the internet. It has simply become more public.

I think your interpretation of the scenario is mistaken. Most of the noise about bigotry these days is about rear guard barely disguised resistance to the sweeping changes that have overtaken the country. The die hard racists and bigots remaining in the country exist in a landscape where its next to impossible to pass on their onerous traditions to their descendants.

I agree with @thorninmud in that I too grew up in the 70’s where to here the words….“gook, spic, mick, nigguh” were commonplace and today pretty much reside in the past. What I do see that I did not see in my earlier years is this media driven sound bite bigotry that cherry picks moments in time that capture any number of bigoted or racially divisive events and blasts them across all social media platforms where the mental morons take these moments, create dumb-ass Meme’s that will perpetuate the problem infinitesimally.

The rantings on the net are aberrations, and there will always be sprinklings of skinheads, gay bashers, antisemetics, etc, but mainstream tolerance for such foolishness is no longer the rule, and nothing is more effective in combatting such crap than the penalties accompanying social ostricization.

@stanleybmanly Above, you wrote, “I think your interpretation…” Whom are you speaking to? Who is “your”?

I was speaking to your comment that racism is more commonplace. I don’t think this is the case. It’s more that now loud and relentless attention is given to the mere suspicion of bigotry, and that’s why this stuff appears to be everywhere.

racism and many more forms of bigotry have become commonplace

How and what are you using to measure the rate of racism?

@Jackiavelli It is not implied that this is a researched thought. It’s merely my perception from what I glean from perusing the papers, reading social media, and overhearing on the bus. I hear about it much more now than in years past. (And “years past” is a completely relative term to something indeterminate in my head.)

@stanleybmanly Thanks for the clarification. I think I understand that. I like what @thorninmud had to say above. It’s a fringe that is finding its ability to hold bigoted notions is being vigorously opposed, and they are fighting back.

“WE” are not more bigoted but we live in a much smaller world today. That is because of the media like CNN and Major cable networks also the internet has made “more things in your face”. I currently live in an area where there are fourth generation members of the KKK, they haven’t changed.

I doubt that we’re more bigoted—it’s just that thanks to social media and other communication outlets, we have many more ways of both expressing and being subjected to it.

Fact from fiction, truth from diction, we in the US are no more bigoted or less than we always were. Like a shell game, who or what the current target is always moved under a different shell, so when you look under a shell where it was and see nothing, you think it is in the past. Some forms of bigotry has simply went underground or been enveloped by a larger or different form. Next comes the very perception of what is or just merely appears as bigotry. The skins of people have gotten rice paper thin that if you look at them and they think it was a nasty look it has to be because that person seen them in an unflattering way, they are bigots or worse. The perception of what is bigotry is more dangerous than any bigotry itself. The Salem Witch Hunts and McCarthyism are good examples of how people who were totally blameless got labeled or smeared because they did not go along with an agenda or was merely thought to have done something. When it comes to the disparaged perception of how dangerous a race of people are because of the level of the prison population they make can be mistaken as bigotry where it is maybe more racist; but racist can have a minor in bigotry. Seeing that it can be certain things to one group and nothing to another, if what people say is against the group you support, then it can be seen as bigotry simply because it is not in support.

I have seen no significant change in my lifetime.

@Hypocrisy_Central Do you realize that “fact from fiction, truth from diction” makes absolutely no sense at all? Surely, this isn’t the first time you’ve heard that. It’s nonsensical.

The rest of what you wrote here is quite difficult to parse.

What?

@tinyfaery What we see and hear now has been constant your whole life?

I’m in @thorninmud ‘s camp as a kid / teen in the 60’s and 70’s.
Bigotry was much more in your face, remember Archie Bunker?
Gay bashing was wide open amongst most younger males and all males, and the word “faggot” was bandied around like a Badminton birdie.
Racism was glaringly apparent still, even with those that would deny it to their death.

I was actually forbidden by my own family from spending time with a black boy from my high school who was helping me with my math and was part of a group of friends. I was mortified and outraged. I had a very bigoted uncle that once, when driving back from the family cabin in the snow yelled out the window at a couple of stuck eastern people, maybe Iranian or Saudi Arabian ” kinda like driving in sand isn’t it!!!” 0–0
He was highly prejudiced against hispanics, blacks and middle easterners.

I cringe when I think of some of his racial slurs and comments but he’s been dead for 15 years, so, one less bigot on the planet. lol

I think on the whole we’re a much less bigoted society than we were even when I was growing up. But the election of Obama to the White House has brought the bigots and racists out of the woodwork showing their asses every chance they get.

I agree with @Hawaii_Jake that since Obama’s been in office expressions of bigotry and racism is more commonplace. I believe our rabid politically correct rules do emphasize this. In that we insist the 98% cave to the 2 or 3%. I understand gay from a parent’s perspective. My son was gay. First, though he was a loving sensitive intelligent person who had an outrageous sense of humor! As a parent, I would not have chosen for him to be gay. However I did not love him less because he was gay. Perhaps a bit more.

@Hawaii_Jake The rest of what you wrote here is quite difficult to parse.
Cliff Notes, bigotry is what one makes it and it varies from person to person and group to group.

^Bigotry is all relative, eh? Bullshit! It is quite easy to spot unreasoned hatred. I can recognize it in any language without speaking a word.

@Hawaii_Jake Correct, unreasoned hatred is easy to spot but subtle prejudices can be more difficult to spot or easier to disguise.

When I hear someone railing against political correctness what is it they are upset about? My impression is that they are mad that they can no longer express the prejudices they feel inside because society no longer accepts it but what is it to them?

@Hawaii_Jake It is quite easy to spot unreasoned hatred.
If that is the low bar of detection, then there is bigotry all over the world, and have been around since the dawn of man. People have unreason hate for others they never met, don’t live around, or even in the same nation. People who just hate for hate’s sake I don’t think I can point out, unless certain serial killers. People that hate on a national level or individual level always seem to have a catalyst to why they hate, it maybe illogical, but they always have a reason.