About 20 years ago I had little to do at work as the company had just been bought for parts and we were all waiting to be laid off. Most folks spent their office hours scrolling the internet for new jobs but I was going to travel for a few weeks, a belated honeymoon, so I spent a lot of time reading the news and laughing at Cracked.
The website was running a series of autobiographical articles in which average folks wrote about their jobs or their lives. The authors ranged from paramedics to pole dancers and it was all wildly entertaining. There was one article that stood out for me. It was written by a former neo Nazi white supremacist. It detailed how he fell into it and how he climbed out of it.
The article ended with the writer noting that even the most hate-filled bigot has the one exception. That they may hate Black people, Jewish folks, brown people and women- except Bobby. Bobby is good people. It was meant to be hopeful, I think. For me it was ominous.
David Duke, renowned white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, reportedly had great fondness for the Black woman who acted as nanny and housekeeper for his family. The followup investigation to the January 6th Insurrection has revealed several Proud Boys, a misogynistic white supremacist gang, married to and parenting people of color. I wasn’t able to articulate it but even back then I knew that I was the “Black friend” to a lot of people in my life with views kindly labeled problematic.
Having a spouse, partner, child, or friend of a different race, religion, culture, or ethnicity does not mean a person is not prejudiced. It doesn’t even mean a person is not prejudiced against that particular group. After all, even the most hate-filled bigot has at least the one exception.