Bigotry

The subject of bigotry came up in my last class, and I didn’t really get around to discussing it in much depth. It occurred to me that some folks seem to have a faulty notion of just what this word means.

The reference was to a fellow I know (who will remain nameless), who used a racial slur in a conversation with me. This fellow is actually (mostly) a pretty nice guy, but he does harbor significant racial bias. Of course, no one is a villain in his own eyes.

So, why is that bigotry? Bigotry is generally defined as an intolerance to other racial groups, but I think that bigotry can be explained in much more fundamental terms. Namely, bigotry is the process of making moral judgments which have no moral basis.

Morality, you see, is based on human choices. If the element of choice is not present somewhere, then there is no moral issue. When a person chooses to commit (or not) a crime, that is a moral choice. The aspects of a person about which he or she has no choice are not moral issues. This criterion of choice clarifies what is and what is not bigotry.

As an illustration, nobody gets to choose what color of skin they have, or gender, or the ethnicity of their parents. Therefore, any judgment that a person makes of superiority (or inferiority) of one racial group (or gender, etc.) over another is bigotry, because it is a moral judgment that has no moral basis.

A racial slur is a moral judgement of superiority of your particular race over another; a moral judgement without moral basis; bigotry.

New Applicants Increase, Renewals Taper Off

Over the last 8 or 9 months, I have noticed that even as my new-applicant classes have been consistently full (and occasionally, I have to turn away potential students), my renewal classes have been getting smaller. There were two changes in the law that could affect this, one of which hasn’t really kicked in yet.

The change that is already having an effect is that after your 2nd renewal, you only have to get a new TR100 every 10 years (you still have to renew and pay the fee, but you only have to take a renewal class every other renewal).

The change that will kick in next year is the extension of the renewal period from 4 years to the current 5 years. I expect renewal classes to shrink substantially for a while after the last of the 4 year licenses come up for renewal, then slowly come back up over a period of several months.

I recall at the last instructor re-certification that there were a lot of grumbles about both of those changes, and speculation that it would reduce the incomes of CHL instructors. So far, I have not found that to be the case, since the surge in new applicants has more than made up for the lack of renewals.

And, fortunately, I don’t do CHL classes for a living.