The Intolerance of the "Tolerant"

This past Sunday I was visiting friends celebrating their daughter's high school graduation with an informal "open house" party.  There I met a very nice woman who spoke glowingly about her daughter studying pre-med at college in Colorado.  The daughter, a vegetarian and confirmed social activist, mentioned that she was a bit disillusioned by the superficiality of the "tolerance" exhibited by many of the residents of the nation's most "tolerant" city: Boulder.  I should note that the family conforms to all of the requisites for a "green" and "progressive" categorization.

As an example of the daughter's concern, the woman mentioned a family ski vacation where in order to transport all the kids and equipment they rented an SUV.  Driving through Boulder, the family was confronted by a middle aged woman who stood on the curb as they passed and gave the family "the finger."  

It struck me that we are judged no so much by who we are but by "perceptions."  

In a fit of half seriousness and half humor I suggested that the woman may want to conduct a social experiment on the intolerance of the tolerant by sending her daughter a bumper sticker that simply said "GOP."  She laughted then got quiet as she contemplated the potential consequences of such an act.

In my opinion, the danger we all face is our inability to see and understand that to some degree or other we are all intolerant of those who differ from us.  And how that keeps us from becoming a truly "open" community on many levels.

While working at the National Rifle Association, I was shocked by the prejudice that differed in no way from the racial prejudice of the Jim Crow era of our nation's history showed to gun owners by many in the national media, by public policy shapers in Congress, and by non-gun owners in polite society. If you owned a gun, you had to be a low life, violent, a bigot, and no one who should be allowed to roam free in acceptable society.

That attitude was brought home by social workers, psychologists etc. at one public forum in Baltimore.  One PhD type pronounced that "if you own a gun you might not now be guilty of harming someone but you will someday." It was a pronouncement that stuck me as incredibily narrow in vision and purely intolerant.  

Similar prejudice aimed at individuals because they were non Christian, gay, Republican, hunters, poor, trappers, tree huggers, vegetarians, blessed with more skin color than the pigmentless sunburn set, mentally or physically challenged, or just non native language speakers all combined to erect barriers to acceptance.

I remember traveling to Texas to do a radio show in the early 1980s.  Outside the station, the streets were filled with bright lights and even more colorful characters.  It was the city's gay district and you would have thought it was Mardi Gras orCarnival in New Orleans or Rio.  Everyone was laughing and smiling, even the cops.  A year later, I ventured to the same station, walked outside and the streets were dark and quiet.  AIDS literally took away the life of the neighborhood.  Life seemed a little sadder.  

After NRA, I worked in my family's tiny restaurant on Capitol Hill.  My mother built a clientele that was half gay and half straight.  The food was better than good and the spirit of the place was great.  We even catered to the hookers next door who serviced Members of Congress and their oh so correct staff.  Again, the lights went out as the specter of AIDS visited the Hill.  


Later I looked around my suburban Maryland community and watched an influx of new neighbors arrive from Africa and Latin America.  I was roundly condemned for suggesting that if we had volunteer efforts to help folks get their citizenship and learn English the new residents would not feel so isolated, not to mention victimized because they did not understand what sleazy exploiters were doing to them.  Somehow my suggestion was deemed as "intolerant."

Recently I was asked to edit for publication a short manuscript about a young boy's journey to manhood guided in part by his Uncle who was "mentally defective" after some problem incurred shortly after birth.  It brought back distant memories of my childhood during the 1950s where adults would warn my sisters and me about avoiding an equally challenged person at the local carnival.  The individual in question always smiled, wore thick glasses and had no friends that we could see.  He just looked different.

As I progressed through the manuscript I was mesmerized by the care and compassion of the Uncle shown a young boy whose parents were certifiably cruel, abusive and just plain nasty.  It was and is a marvelous story I hope many will read when it is finally published.   I will post its publication date and availability. 


The story helped me recognize my own intolerance and reminded me to beware those who posture as "tolerant" to all save the folks who just might be a little different.