Tolerance levels

This weekend I was called “too tolerant.” Not just tolerant, but too tolerant, as an insult. This came about after one (of many) discussions of race between myself and another individual. Though discussion might be too strong of a word. You can’t discuss something with someone when every other word out of their mouth is a racial slur. So this was more like listening to a whiny six year old, you let them talk their crazy talk, try to bring up some valid points, and then eventually just give up when you realize all your attempts are futile. At which point (just like a six year old), they believe they’re the smarter person because you refuse to acknowledge their outrageous claims anymore. It was somewhere during the course of this that I was called “too tolerant” because I was defending people of other ethnicities. To clear the air, there is one group of people who I cannot stand and am extremely not tolerant of. That group is racists.

It’s not that I’m really that offended by a majority of the slurs themselves, if someone drops one on occasion, I’m likely just to shrug it off and let it slide. But when someone bases their entire argument on slurs and stereotypes, that’s when it really becomes a problem. Not only are you showing a lack of class, but you are demonstrating a complete incapability of holding an intelligent conversation, let alone the severe risk you hold if getting your ass beat if you’re talking to the wrong guy. A few of the gems from this weekend (excluding the 2,000 utterances of the N-bomb in a variety of forms):

“Would it really be that bad if New York City got wiped off the face of the earth?”
“Is it just a coincidence that the only guy getting yelled at by security was a black guy?”
“I hope you’re happy when everyone turns gay and it’s the end of the human race.”

Etc., etc. Some of this, on the surface, would seem to just be baiting, throwing out ridiculous statements to see who’ll bite. I would chalk it up to that except for the fact that the only two things out of this guy’s mouth all weekend were sports comments and racial slurs. At some point you have to start thinking that maybe he does really think like this. And not only does he think like this, but he vocalizes it, completely oblivious to how stupid he sounds.

I would have hoped, by this point in history, after getting past slavery, women’s rights, the abolishment of the “separate but equal” laws, etc., that we’d be beyond this as a society. That racism/sexism/pure hatred really wasn’t that prevalent anymore. Or at least people wouldn’t be so stupid as to make their feelings so obvious. Maybe I’m just giving people too much credit. Or maybe I really am too tolerant and most black people just want to rob and kill me. You know, seeing it put like that, fuck him. Racist scumbag. How’s that for tolerance?