It's difficult to express "there are certain kinds of bigotry I understand, and certain kinds I don't" because it sounds like I find one kind acceptable and one kind not. Of course that isn't true. It's just that having existed most of my life in American culture, I comprehend where some of it comes from. How it formed and percolated and persisted and too often boiled over. Not a justification.
I don't really get the recent eruptions of anti-immigrant hysteria. Sure some of it just part of the general package of racism. That part I get. None of the anti-immigrant hysteria is directed at the Canadian menace (at least the white Canadian menace). Get rid of all the brown people. That's America!
So, yes, to the extent that it's that simple, I get it. But there's something else going on that I really just don't understand. Maybe I can't explain it in an early morning blog post before I have had my coffee.
