Claire+J’s+OpEd+Article

=A Word on Bigotry=

by Claire Jurgensen
I can’t stand bigotry; I can’t stand people parading their opinions as fact, I can’t stand people babbling about topics they know nothing about, and perhaps the one thing I absolutely cannot stand is when people impose their beliefs on others.

I can have trouble forming opinions. The main reason I don’t speak out is that I don’t think I’m qualified to tell anyone how to live, and I don’t want to put anyone down in any way. Well, I’ve been learning. I’ve learned there are certain things you can be passive about, and there are certain topics that are too important for silence, topics that deserve your opinion and deserve your voice. To me, this is one of those topics. I usually don’t hate that many things, but I despise bigotry and intolerance.

I would like to say I don’t understand how people can be so cruel and close-minded towards one another, but that’s not quite it. I’ve seen people treat each other awfully, I’ve seen people shut out contrary information, and I know firsthand that people can be hurtful. It’s a sad state of affairs when we need to assume the worst of people, because the worst is usually what we see. If only people could treat each other with dignity rather than derision.

I’ve learned there is a line between simply having an opinion and being a self-righteous jerk. It’s one thing to have an ill-informed opinion, but it’s quite another to harass other people for their different views. I have zero patience for these people.

One of the kinds of discrimination I take the most to heart is the discrimination faced by gay people. I don’t know how anyone can think they have the authority to tell others who they can be attracted to. Attraction and love are such enormously personal things, that no one should be allowed to dictate who can be with who, and what is or isn’t “natural”. Natural—now that’s the phrase that drives me crazy. When a person says two gay people being together is unnatural, it upsets so much that my face turns an even darker pink than usual. Their attraction is completely natural, valid, and worthwhile, and how someone could impose their belief to the contrary on another is beyond me. If you don’t like gay people, I personally think that’s prejudicial, but you’re entitled to your belief. However, when an issue like a gay person’s right to marry is threatened by people who disagree with their lifestyle, that is when I have a significant problem with them. Someone can have a personal opinion, but they cannot infringe the rights of or harass others based on their own opinions.

Religion is another sensitive topic to me. I absolutely understand that there are religious people that are wonderful, tolerant human beings, but there are aspects of religion that certain individuals use poorly. I’m not religious, but for the most part I don’t have a major problem with the religious ideals of kindness and patience and whatnot. If you want to live your life according to those values, good for you. That’s better than a lot of people, and I don’t begrudge religion for that. The arguments of religious bigots about sinners going to hell and other religions being wrong are the arguments that I have difficulties with. As a nonreligious person, I have heard of extreme people saying that atheists go to hell. I don’t believe in hell, but the fact that other people consider my abstaining from religion worthy enough to go to an eternal inferno bothers me. What also bothers me is when people that claim to be pious diss other religions as false. Again, I know this doesn’t apply to all religious people, but there is no reason for some extremists to insult others because they have a different religious belief. It makes no sense, but then again, discrimination rarely does.

A bit about political bigotry. I’ve met my fair share of political bigots and may I just say, they’re not pleasant. I’m so tired of people pretending that they know everything. I’m tired of people parroting opinions they hear on TV and heralding them as their own. I don’t know that much, but I don’t go around acting like I do. People that are ignorant on a subject shouldn’t pretend they know what they are talking about. Informed discussion of important issues is one thing, but this intense disgust some people feel for people of the opposing political party is getting out of hand. You would think they were persecuting each other with the way they talk. Political parties are crucial to democracy as they give the people the options necessary to vote, but hatred between parties should not get in the way of our progress as a people.

However it may come across, this article isn’t to say that I myself am free of bias and prejudice. I try not to judge people harshly, but to be honest, I do. A source of annoyance (and irony) to me is when people that are supposedly against narrow-mindedness are in themselves narrow-minded, just in degrees and about specific topics. Hypocrites bother me to no end, but in actuality we’re all hypocrites. When I was having a discussion with a couple friends recently, my friend posed the question of age identity to me. She asked me the reasons I completely supported the rights of those with varying gender identities and I proceeded to give her my usual reasons, that people born into the wrong body should be treated with as much respect and given the same rights as everyone else of that gender. She asked me why, then, people that identified with a different age than their own biological one shouldn’t be allowed to legally declare themselves older or younger. I was stumped and found myself blurting out weak arguments like “that’s their biology, that can’t be changed” and “it’s just not the same”, the same arguments that can be used narrow mindedly against gender identity rights. All three of us reflected on how no matter how progressive and unbiased a person may think they are, they are still fallible. The important thing is to remain tolerant of others, and to remember there is always a different side to the argument.

I am aware that it sounds hypocritical of me to criticize the beliefs of people that criticize the beliefs of people. I get it. Perhaps I could have been more eloquent in my explanation, but the main point of what I’m trying to say is that people shouldn’t think that they or their beliefs are superior to all others, and they especially shouldn’t hassle others for being of a diffferent race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or mindset. Bigotry of any kind shouldn’t be acceptable.

(Regrettably, my picture "could not be found" for some reason. It was a picture of my face looking disapproving.)