The Choice to Participate in the Soup of Offensive Ideas Makes You Stronger
At this point, most people have heard my tale of my early days as a homophobic dickface who, when confronted by a close friend who happened to be gay, worked through the fear and loathing to become a more decent human being (or at least a less monstrous, bigoted one).
I'm glad for the experience because it taught me a couple of things that have stuck over the years:
• Bigots can change if they want to.
• Lectures from strangers about tolerance are trumped by the disdain of someone you love.
• College is a place where being a stupid jackass who then learns to be a more educated jackass is the point.
...that when you spend time helping the truly broken—the ones who require more patience than seems reasonable—you walk away with two revelations: how much of yourself still works, and how vital the fragile thread of kindness is that holds people together.