Um, I'm going to have to take exception with that anecdote where Ms Bustillos holds up her husband as an example of tolerance. I'm assuming her husband either isn't black or passes as white if the neighbor felt comfortable confiding to them that he was eager to kill a black burglar. (If he is black, sorry for assuming, and I admire his immense forgiveness.)
Firstly, it doesn't mean much to tolerate something--to turn a blind eye to something--that doesn't affect you. If you're black and you get Freaked The Fuck Out by this declaration, you'd be pretty rightfully Freaked The Fuck Out. "People talk a lot of nonsense," you might say, but when your neighbor has just told you he is eager to shoot someone who looks like you--who may be passing through his yard on some errand that he'd mistake for burglary--you have a right to be scared, to take it as more than the ramblings of an old man, and it does not make you less of a "great success" in the tolerance department.
Secondly, that anecdote makes me think of how as a queer woman I have tolerated teachers and friends telling me I'm going to hell. This is what I associate with tolerance--forgiving someone for hurting me, and holding my tongue and making "pleasant conversation". Forgiveness and empathy is good and necessary on an individual level, but that kind of holding-your-tongue lying-back-and-taking-it tolerance begets no progress.
What I understand from your article is that you're arguing for empathy more than tolerance--empathy where you try to understand where the other person is coming from, the circumstances that surround their intolerable qualities. I get the sense that's what you're really saying, but that last anecdote muddies up the waters for me. You can have empathy for your neighbor's circumstances (elderly, white, didn't know any better) and still stand up and say politely, "Sir, I am going to have to take exception to what you just said."
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On How To Be Tolerant
Um, I'm going to have to take exception with that anecdote where Ms Bustillos holds up her husband as an example of tolerance. I'm assuming her husband either isn't black or passes as white if the neighbor felt comfortable confiding to them that he was eager to kill a black burglar. (If he is black, sorry for assuming, and I admire his immense forgiveness.)
Firstly, it doesn't mean much to tolerate something--to turn a blind eye to something--that doesn't affect you. If you're black and you get Freaked The Fuck Out by this declaration, you'd be pretty rightfully Freaked The Fuck Out. "People talk a lot of nonsense," you might say, but when your neighbor has just told you he is eager to shoot someone who looks like you--who may be passing through his yard on some errand that he'd mistake for burglary--you have a right to be scared, to take it as more than the ramblings of an old man, and it does not make you less of a "great success" in the tolerance department.
Secondly, that anecdote makes me think of how as a queer woman I have tolerated teachers and friends telling me I'm going to hell. This is what I associate with tolerance--forgiving someone for hurting me, and holding my tongue and making "pleasant conversation". Forgiveness and empathy is good and necessary on an individual level, but that kind of holding-your-tongue lying-back-and-taking-it tolerance begets no progress.
What I understand from your article is that you're arguing for empathy more than tolerance--empathy where you try to understand where the other person is coming from, the circumstances that surround their intolerable qualities. I get the sense that's what you're really saying, but that last anecdote muddies up the waters for me. You can have empathy for your neighbor's circumstances (elderly, white, didn't know any better) and still stand up and say politely, "Sir, I am going to have to take exception to what you just said."