Subtle and standing down from your profession bigotry is still damaging and destructive behaviour. If you think I am bullying bigots for being bigots, sure believe what you like.
I used to be bullied from kindergarten to 6 class because we were poor and it showed because I was wearing op shop second hand school uniforms that were not of my actual school and we lived in a very old and almost dilapidated house in the eastern suburbs. My class mates (the girls were even worse the the boys at times) for example used to stop and hold their noses before running fast across to pass our house. Then stop and walk normally again. I was excluded from almost everything and had very few friends because of prejudice. As we all know kids can be cruel at that age and once you are labeled it is very, very hard to change that perspective. It was like a stigma that would not go away and kids didn't want to hang with me. So I was a very shy young boy that just kept to myself in those early school years and it was very hard to make friends. I would just play imaginary games with myself a hell of a lot.
But when I got to high school mostly no one knew me and the kids would talk to me and treat me normally. In no time I started to find my voice and I became a different person and really opened up personality wise. I started to participate and started to play organised sports which made me even more confident. My confidence shot through the roof actually. I made so many mates that by year 10 I was one of the most popular kid in the whole school of around 1300 kids. In year 11 and 12 virtually all the kids in every grade knew me by name even if I didn't know them. I couldn't go anywhere without someone greeting me or stopping me for a chat. It felt great.
My teaches not all, but most loved me. I was a clown, I couldn't stop myself. One time I remember my English teacher and the overall English master who was a very old school fuddy-duddy type stopped the class after I said something that cracked him up and the class and announced that in all his years as a teacher he had never met anyone quite like me and that I bring a welcome and humorous distraction to the class. I remember this because right then I remember thinking to myself wow, what a different experience to life I am having right now. If only they all knew what I was like and how I was viewed back when I was at my other school. I was miserable and lonely so often back then. But now well I think all those early years of derision and exclusion and suppressing my natural personality built up to the point of now needing to totally let go and have fun and laughs.
I don't say all this to praise myself at all and I am not trying to say I am some funny comedian type, to the contrary I'm not. I am still down deep that shy insecure little boy in so many ways and need to feel comfortable and feel that I am with friends for me to open up and be myself. Some scars never leave you. But I say all this to highlight how damaging exclusion can be. It was the main thing that most of my young school mates would do to me. It was that silent bigotry against me. Only the few would actually pick on me or bully me directly. Also I was a fairly strong kid, so not many would actually want to pick an actual physical fight with me. So they would just ignore me and only call me names if I wanted to join in and be part of what they were be doing. So I quickly learnt to be by myself.
It's not about breaking the law mate and shows how little you know of what is really going on under the surface. Bigotry has many faces. Silence is a major one that keeps it percolating along and hidden, but it is there. You may think that I too am bullying these people for their beliefs. Sure I might be in some way, but calling out bigotry no matter how religious it is can't be a bad thing surely? I mean we aren't saying you can't be part of our club or group or anything like that. In fact we are saying we want you to join in and be part of the whole group and no one should be excluded at all.
