Were you raised to be tolerant?

[Horse with no Name]

One of my best, and worst, traits is that I am rebellious. I always have been.
Maybe that is why I am a Democrat today.
I was not raised to be a tolerant individual.
My Dad was very Archie Bunker-esque.
Only as I became enlightened did I realize exactly how deep the intolerance ran.
My Dad would not let me hang around with fat people. When I put on a few pounds, he called me Lardo.
When my brother didn't get good grades, my Dad called him a moron. My Grandmother was from East Germany and he referred to her as a Nazi. I had an Aunt that was mentally unstable and he called her "DoDo".
We had a brown dog named Taco.
We had a black dog named Spook.
We had a Red Doberman that was named Kraut.
We are all products of our environment, however, it doesn't have to be the path that we choose. My Dad was raised by intolerant people and grew up to be intolerant. I was raised by intolerance and chose to walk the path of tolerance.
It just goes to show that it can happen. There is always hope.

[bryant69]

1. You should have gradations in this

Completely, mostly, sort of, mostly not, completely not.

I answered yes, but it wasn't perfect. My parents did make occasionally comments about hispanics that were unfortunate. While in other ways they stressed that every body was people and we should try to get on.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Horse with no Name]

4. Fixed.

Thanks. :thumbsup:

[seemunkee]

2. My parents were liberal

My grandparents and the rest of the family were not. I know that my mother's father belonged to the KKK in the 20s and 30s. It was not uncommon to here the "N" word at family gatherings.

[jwirr]

21. My Mother told me that not everyone who belonged to KKK was

bigoted because some were forced to join. She said that sometimes a banker would hold a mortgage and demand that the borrower become part of the KKK. This was just one way that people were coerced into joining.

[seemunkee]

27. He was in local politics

I figured it was part of the deal. Still, it's hard to get over knowing that someone you looked up to belonged to the Klan

[ThomCat]

3. My father hates almost everyone.

And he's too damned evil to die. My twin brother once tried to join the border patrol after coming out of the military because "I want to be able to shoot mexicans and get away with it." I'm often told that it's amazing that I am so different from the rest of the family. Being an outcast from my family turns out to be a good thing.

[Autumn Colors]

5. Nope, not at all

My parents were lifelong repubs and my father is a total racist. Thankfully, they've both voted democratic since 2000, though.

[On the Road]

6. Yes -- My Parents Have Very Conservative Politics

but I was raised to be tolerant and never heard a bigoted word from either of them.

[W_HAMILTON]

7. You should probably have "neither" as an option, too

I don't think I was taught one way or the other by my family. I definitely wasn't taught intolerance, even though every now and then someone would make a racist remark or something like that. In those few occassions, it was just like how THEY were, not like they were teaching me, or telling me, to be that way. However, I definitely wasn't taught to love and accept everyone, either. This subject was pretty much a non-issue, one way or the other.

I was taught to treat people with respect, though. That, combined with the fact I was never really taught to hate certain groups of people, probably lead me to be a pretty tolerant person.

If you're taught to respect people, and not taught to hate anyone, I guess that will usually end up in producing a tolerant person.

EDIT: Also, a little bit of my background. I grew up in a "conservative" household, even though on the Freeper scale of 1-10, it would probably rank a lowly 1 or 2. We were supposed to be Baptists, even though the only time we went to Church was for marriages or funerals. There were a small handful of racist comments/jokes through the years, but it's not like they were gonna march with the KKK or anything. And though they "didn't like to talk about who they voted for," I'm pretty sure most of them voted Republican. It's kinda sad; even today, they vote that way just because it's indoctrinated in them to do so. I wouldn't be surprised if my mom votes Republican just because that's what my dad did (he's been dead almost a decade). It's like they don't think for themselves.

[Dembo98]

8. I think...

I am a little stupider for reading, let alone responding to this thread. Giddyup!

[Marr]

9. Nope. I loved my parents dearly, but there was alot of bigotry in

my household growing up. I grew up in L.A., but my parents were originally from Missouri and they'd never been around different types of people very much. They thought races shouldn't mix, and I don't just mean in marriage. I mean friendship. They'd say they'd never bring "one of them home for dinner" for instance.

I think my parents actually changed quite a bit while I was growing up. We lived in an area comprised of mostly 1st and 2nd generation Mexican immigrants and blacks, and their kid's friends reflected that. They got alot more accepting over the years.

They never expressed any relgious intolerance that I saw.

[Avalux]

10. Mixed bag at my house.

My father, who spent some time in the Navy seeing the world, is very tolerant, an avid reader and thinker who doesn't speak unless he's thought it through. My mother on the other hand, has lived in the same three mile radius her entire life and has little tolerance for anything not familiar. She is a racist and now that I'm an adult, cringe when I hear her say certain things; knowing that whatever I say won't make a difference. I suppose I weighed both my parents' views and decided for myself. My life experiences have also given me the opportunity to meet a variety of different people and realize we are all really pretty much the same. Ignorance is a bit part of intolerance, IMHO.

[Forrest Greene]

11. I Was Raised

...without a shred of religious instruction. Plenty of morality & ethics, though, & a good dose of contempt for hypocrites, authoritarians & sycophants. One of my best memories of my father is going with him to negotiate prices one evening when he was in the process of buying a car. I amused myself while he & the salesguy talked, & then we left. Outside, my Dad said to me, "Now see, that man was as black as the ace of spades, but he & I treated each other with respect & politeness, & we're giving each other a fair deal on the car." I was 9, it was 1962 in Connecticut, my father meant nothing derogatory by the playing card reference, &, lucky me, I didn't yet see any reason why the facts he mentioned were remarkable. I knew there were people that hated each other, but I just thought they were mean & wrong.

Still do.




Edited to make that "he & I"

[kapkao]

12. I was raised to believe most people are stupid or full of shit

Which option should I pick?

Besides that, I think some of you are confusing being tolerant and enlightened with being PC.

[etherealtruth]

26. I was taught that "everyone" ...

... is "crazy." Not on an individual level, but at a group/organizational level level.

[Options Remain]

13. I had no idea until I got older

My parents are/were liberal and tolerant in my eyes.

Until they met the inlaws to be (gay and now married)

Now they are straining to meet my definition of liberal having come around to my side :) But it was rough for a bit.

[wicket]

14. My dad's family had a dog named "Sambo"

Thank god he turned out normal.

[LWolf]

15. Sort of.

I was raised to be humble, to appreciate diversity, and to love and respect life and living things.

The word "tolerance" infers a judgement. That which you "tolerate" is some how inferior, or not as good, or flawed in some way. It, in my opinion, is a kinder, gentler version of "we're better than you, we're right, you're wrong." It's "we're better than you, but we'll put up with you."

[Forrest Greene]

16. Re: Sort Of

That's a good point.

[nancyr]

17. Tolerance

I was raised in a fine Christian home by a couple of bigots. Their examples made me bend over backward to not be like them.

[Cleita]

18. I don't think any of us were raised completely tolerant.

Since my mother was Latina and my father Anglo-American I was raised to be racially tolerant, which my father's family wasn't. My pediatrician was a black American and family friends were comfortably middle class people of all races. However, my parents were very bigoted about class. The lower classes were vulgar and uneducated in their mindset particularly my mother's.

You had to be born into the upper classes. We were middle class and couldn't be either lower class or upper class. According to my mother you were born into your class and shouldn't pretend to want to be any better. Money had nothing to do with it. If you were displaced aristocracy and poor (a phenomenon that happened after WWII, when many displaced eastern europeans of titled aristocracy found themselves as working immigrants in America with barely two cents to rub together) you were still upper class according to my mother.

Also, women were inferior according to both of them and had an obligation to be ladylike so that one could make a good marriage and have someone to look after you. You can imagine the scrutiny my boyfriends were under because according to mama those boys of working class parents had nothing to offer me. I really stopped bringing them home as I got older.

I too was very rebellious and started examining the BS I was handed with a large magnifying glass, not only at home but at school and later at work. For that matter refusing to get married out of high school (mama already had bachelors acceptable to her and my dad already picked out) and insisting on going to college and going to work put them in agony. Worse than that was insisting on moving into my own place. (Only whores didn't live at home until the day they married.)

[slackmaster]

19. My parents never told me I wa obligated to suffer fools

Other than that, we were pretty tolerant.

[jwirr]

20. My grandmother taught me religious tolerance, my father & mother

racial tolerance and having personal friends who were gay taught me the rest. I am thankful for these people - they taught me the value of freedom from hate.

[LiberalEsto]

22. My immigrant parents

were more or less internationalists. They were both college educated in Estonia, but neither graduated, due to WW2. They came here in 1949 from a displaced persons camp in Germany.

Once my dad invited a black co-worker over for dinner on a Sunday afternoon. I'd never met a black person before in our lily-white suburban NJ town, but we didn't think anything of it. This was in the early 1960s.

A number of neighbors made it a point to scold my dad for letting a black person into the neighborhood and called him an n-word-lover. Our family was outraged. Unlike some of the kids I went to elementary school with, I was not taught to dislike and shun people of other backgrounds. I was astonished when some kids harassed me for walking home from school with a girl who was Jewish. In high school I was enraged at learning, just before I graduated, that a black young woman in 10th grade had never been allowed a seat on her school bus. I wished I'd known sooner, because I would have made it an issue at school.

I left town when I graduated and never lived there again. I've always taught my kids that people are people no matter what their background, and am proud that they have friends of all kinds.

[rustydog]

23. You know, it is stupid questions like this from people like you

that just pushes me closer to the EDGE, man.

just kidding!

:woohoo:

[rucky]

24. Tolerant, yes...sensitive, no.

we were never taught to hate, but there was some humor (stereotyping) that I would definately now consider off-limits and not really that funny.

[calico1]

25. Yes by my mother, no by my father.

Fortunately she had a stronger influence on my life.