Quiet Bigotry
I was listening to NPR this morning and between their self promotion of digital radio I noticed a new term (new for me) being used to describe Iraqis killing Iraqis. Sectarian Cleansing. The war stirred people up and moved them around. They had to move on short notice. Some just plain had to flee. People who came to Baghdad took over houses that were abandon. The Iraqi police are going to crack down on squatters. NPR calls this Sectarian Cleansing like they support segregation of religions groups.
In order to better mock NPR, I've come up with a few new terms of my own to help identify groups that need killing cleansing.

Sectarian cleansing: People of the wrong religion.
Ethnic cleansing: People with the wrong family tree.
Chromoptic cleansing: People with the wrong eye color.
Ryonoic cleansing: People with the wrong shaped nose.
Tonedefnic cleansing: People who like bagpipes.
Humorothic cleansing: People who tell bad jokes.

You get the idea. Besides, I like bagpipes.

I remember in high school a teacher who was Jewish had to tell a student that calling a Jewish person a Jew is OK. He had apparently only heard the term as derogatory  I bet he had heard all the jokes that started something like "a [ethnic slur], a [ethnic slur 2] and a Jew walk into a bar." How did that happen? People hate Jews so much that the proper name for the religion's followers has itself become a slur. Is this a South thing? I wouldn't doubt it. The term "jew" used as in haggle helped kept a candidate for Texas governor from winning the election several years ago. Well that and comparing the weather to rape. The guy was a redneck.
This kind of thing is what I've always called quiet bigotry. The kind of bigotry that keeps people from communicating. The kind of bigotry that stops people from finding their way in life. It is just plane ignorance. I felt like this is the sort of thing that I heard on NPR this morning. Just plane ignorance.