How to be a Bigot

One can find a very detailed tutorial on how to stereotype, hate, and label inside William Faulkner's Light in August. 

There are a many ways in which the town of Jefferson demonstrates these skills. They boil down to the imposition of a simplified narrative over a complex reality. 

This structure holds true for the townspeople and Hightower, for Mrs. Armstid and Lena, for the townspeople, the dietician, Bobbie and Joe, and ultimately... for whites and negros.


I see two main reasons people cast narratives: to understand, and to compare.

We cast narratives over complex ideas or objects or plaster them with labels to simplify them:

• "This math problem is a substitution problem"
• "That car is a sedan"
• "There are GMOs in that food"

… and this is okay most of the time. Complex ideas, economic principles, variations of cars, brands of food need simplifying in everyday life for the sake of sanity and understanding. 

But when we start casting narratives over people, we take a step towards bigotry. People are all complex, and no one fits that story mold perfectly.

When you assume someone does, you take away from who they truly are.

Ultimately, you're rendering them into ideas-- objects.

• "Mr. Smith is a bad teacher"
• "She's a conservative"
• "Billy is a smart-ass"
• "She's a DB"

Here lies the seed of the problem: people want life to be easy and they want to feel good. 

To make life easy, people label other people so that they can understand.

To feel good, people label people negatively, so that they can feel like good people by comparison.