The Bigotry In Us All

I wish I had read Rabbi Marc Gellman's MSNBC.com web article, Driving While Anti-Semitic, before I had written my previous post on Mel Gibson's very public anti-Semitic tirade and the subsequent public flogging. I could have saved myself a lot of time by just linking his article. The Rabbi is, of course, much more eloquent than I could ever hope to be:

"If it had not been for his Jesus movie, his outburst would have been filed under the large and smarmy Hollywood file of anti-Semitic entertainers like Errol Flynn and Marlon Brando, not to mention a long list of artists, poets and philosophers too numerous to mention here. Add in, if you wish, bigoted athletes or members of the restricted country club who smile at you on the street but hate you in their heart. And then why not throw onto this fetid pile of prejudice all those who tell Polish jokes or homosexual jokes or racist jokes.

What all this adds up to is that Mel is not alone in believing despicable things about good people for no reason other than the cancer of bigotry in his soul. The question of whether Mel Gibson is a bigot is not any easier to determine than whether many of us are bigots. Just because we don't get raging drunk and lose control of our dark side does not mean that we do not all have a dark side. Bigotry is in us all to varying degrees and we ought not be so ready to label people as bigots as if such labels were easy to apply and not ultimately self-referential. In pointing our index finger at Gibson as a bigot we must always be mindful of the other fingers that point back at us."

He also had several other excellent and timely comments, so I recommend you follow the above link and read the entire article.

[HT: Laura Ingraham]