The most ravaging aspect of racism and bigotry is that they allow the racist or the bigot to strip away all nuance of humanity from entire groups of people. And when we don’t see the “other” as human, we can choose to do horrible things to them without much self-reflection.
I fall prey to the impulse of easy generalizations too, of course. I watch world events and start to feel that all of the brutal African dictators look alike, all of the radical Israeli West bank settlers look alike, all the …