That's not very far from being true though at least in the context of my life in the US. I lived in a very liberal city hanging out with very liberal Americans (I'd be seen as a conservative in comparison to many of them). I think my intolerance for having people with drastically opposing views in the circle of my friends/relationships is what I have brought with me from Iran and didn't adjust it much here.
In the passenger plane that Iran took down in January following Soleimnani's assassination, nine of my friends and a half dozen acquaintances died. The more sane thing to do would have been to not touch the social media for a while, but I didn't do that, saw the post my cousin had made, blocked him from all my social media (which I felt was long overdue), and made many people upset. I did that for my mental health, 2020 has been tough
Really interesting. I really appreciate your self-awareness and honesty in assessing that (and sharing it). Most people don't bother to attempt to know themselves that well. It also raises a question of tolerance and how that can differ between cultures.
For example, here in Portugal it's pretty clear how many people lack any self-awareness of what would be called racism in America but is really more an expression of their biased thoughts without malice or judgement. They sometimes say things that a clued-in American would think is entirely racist, but it lacks any malice or intent. Meanwhile, races generally get along exceptionally well here compared to the US, no one bats an eye at a mixed-race couple, etc. Your friends in school are just as likely to be black or Muslim or both and there's nothing to it.
In the US it seems people are overly guarded about their thoughts and expressions. And to be honest, there's a lot of people in the US (of all races) who would be triggered by some of the things they might hear in Portugal -- something that they would easily deem as offending "microaggressions" in the US. But in the US there is a culture and history there still backed with malice, with ill intent, with hatred in its heart. And that gets conflated where any signs of bias are interpreted as weapons of systemic oppression.
As a result, the definition of tolerance and what really constitutes racism dramatically differs between the two countries and for understandable reasons. That said, I know more than a few black Americans who came here and were shocked, and some for the first time in their lives found themselves racially relaxed in a country, in that to them there appears to be a complete absence of American racism. Go figure.
I knew this guy who became a woman after sex change surgery. He had a fathered a son before becoming a woman. Wonder what the son thought of this.
Twenty years ago, so this is pre-woke and before Gen Z entered the generational birth canal, I had a female coworker who had gender reassignment and became a man. It worked for him ...partly because as a woman she was insanely butch to begin with. It was an adjustment. But once you're around it, it normalizes pretty quickly.
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