Don’t Become a Bigot Yourself in Your Opposition to Bigotry

Two virtues will stop bigotry in its tracks. Do you have them?

Reject bigotry — Image by benjaminec via DepositPhotos.com

Bigotry is bad. I hope we can all agree on that. To make sure we’re in agreement, perhaps we should clarify the meaning of the word itself. Here are a few rather mainstream definitions:

• Vocabulary.com says “If a person is intolerant of other ideas, races, or religions, we call that person a bigot.”
• According to Merriam-Webster, bigotry is the “obstinate or intolerant devotion to one’s own opinions and prejudices.”
• Dictionary.com defines bigotry as the “stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.”

A common theme in all three of the above definitions is intolerance. It’s clear that intolerance lies at the heart of bigotry. So…

What is intolerance?

Or…more to the point…what is tolerance?

Merriam-Webster provides the following top definitions for tolerance:

• “capacity to endure pain or hardship”
• “sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own”
• “the act of allowing something”