Ringo writes:
That's what I've been saying all along - it's for our good, not somebody else's. It enriches our lives when we recognize the value of somebody else's life.
That's what started the whole discussion, remeber? Robin missed an oppurtunity to enrich his life.
Well, I'm not about Robin's life.
But I will tell another story.
My grandmother died at 107. She was a virulent, vocal racist almost all the years I knew her. I, on the other hand, grew up in a white trash neighborhood, the last block before the black ghetto. I had lots of black friends. A black boy saved my life when I was five years old and immunized me. I became "radicalized," as the fasionable term went in the 60s, on issues of race, class, and, eventually, gender.
At family gatherings, inevitably my grandmother would launch a racist rant. I would confront her, and in no uncertain terms renounce her racism and hatred. This went on for years and years. Family members would buttonhole me and say, "She's too old to change. It's unmannerly to confront her that way. Just let it go."
I would reply, "She's talking in front of children. All it takes to keep bigotry alive is silence."
Finally, at her 103rd birthday party, she motioned me close, and said, "You know, boy, you're right. We're all God's people."
You could've knocked me over with a breath. I was amazed. Some of my nephews, nieces, and great-such came to me later that day to comment that they had been changed by my insistence on confronting her hatefulness, and that they shared my joy that she had come around.
The moral of this story?
If we lived long enough, we would all become good.