Hateful People

Living in Texas and Louisiana has hardened me against bigotry a bit. Or softened me maybe; here’s my situation. For the most part I’ve always had bigotry and racism around me. People make jokes and snap judgments and I do too sometimes, I’ll admit. It’s difficult to constantly be around a certain kind of people without taking on their traits, including anger and hate. But when a joke is told that is prejudiced in nature most try to not laugh but when stereotypes are used it’s hard, I know. Most people I know will walk away when they can and generally keep themselves away from small minded people who tend to make comments that are offensive.
In certain areas of my life it’s hard for me to walk away. I try to keep to myself a lot when I am around certain xenophobe’s, I play my music just a little loud or I “go internal”, just refusing to hear what is going on around me. When someone is speaking directly to me and they make a joke or remark that offends me I try to be diligent and speak up and against it, but sometimes when I accidentally overhear something that I consider wrong I don’t let myself get angry at them for talking that way when it wasn’t meant for my ears in the first place.
The thing that gets me though, especially about the men and women that I see everyday, is that they know that racism is wrong. They know that their prejudiced language is inappropriate. When they are around others who do not agree with their intolerance and they slip and say something idiotic and get a look for it, they try to backtrack away from that comment, or they’ll try to make it out so that it was you that completely misinterpreted their remark.
I get so angry when people know they are doing something wrong and still they insist on making it a central part of their life. The fact that people will go out of their way to not say certain things to certain people and then turn around and joke about that same thing to some other narrow-minded bigots is so tragic. I mean, why? Why would you say things that if said in front of the person you’re talking about would make you embarrassed, why would you say it at all? People who I find to be jerks will hear from me that they are jerks; I won’t just say it behind their backs. I do talk about people, a lot, it’s something that I consider to be a personal problem, I gossip and I trash talk a lot. But typically the people that I talk about know exactly how I feel about them, I’m not afraid to let people know exactly what I think about them, positive or negative.
I guess what I’m saying is bothering me is the fact that people who know it’s wrong to call someone a bigoted name and still do it, not out of habit or how they were raised but because they truly are a hateful person, that makes me gnash my teeth and it makes them a sad, small piece of trash in my book.