the Get Out of Bigotry Free Card

Thursday, August 05, 2004





"Present company excepted."



That's the phrase people throw out when they make some blanket generalization about a group of people and then realize that a member of that group is standing right next to them.


"Man, I had some Puerto Ricans on my last crew, and damn... Puerto Ricans are lazy. Present company excepted, of course."


Or in other words, "...but not you, because I've met you and found that you don't adhere to those stereotypes I just outlined."


Way to go. Did it ever occur to you that every other Puerto Rican might be exactly the same way if you met and got to know them? Can you not realize that on top of being a bigoted ham, you're also contradicting yourself?

"Puerto Ricans are lazy... except for that one I met who's not lazy."

They just argued themselves out of their biased bunk, but they don't even know it. It can't be both; either they're all lazy, or every one of them is different. I guess that concept is just too huge to grasp.

Happens all the time when somebody forms an opinion based on insufficient information. How could you possibly know enough to judge an entire nation's worth of guys based on your initial impression of four? Doesn't occur to them.

But I know why it doesn't. It's simpler to just lump them all under one "lazy" group heading and be done with it. It's less work and you don't have to consider the possibility that you're flawed.


The only thing more degrading than watching someone say "present company excepted" is when the person who's just been insulted hears it and decides not to be pissed. So long as the jackass belts out their little catch phrase, they're not really biased, right? I feel dirty just when I hear that in conversation. And knowing that someone who should be fighting mad has just fallen for it is worse.


Every time somebody in a conversation with me or around me uses that phrase, I find myself utterly enraged. Not because they're trumpeting their bias, because there will always be biased people. You accept their presence like you accept hurricanes and forest fires.

No, I'm enraged because they think so long as they lean on that particular phrase, they're free of any moral qualms they might have.


It's the cheap way out, but I guess it's a hell of a lot easier than realizing they're a bigot.

posted by Scotty 2-shots at 2:15 AM