The etymology of the word 'bigot' is unknown. Its first recorded use is French, as a term for Normans. 'Bigot' is now one of those inflated terms we use without reflection. To judge someone because they are poor, black, female, gay or Native is bigoted, but no more bigoted than judging someone because they are prosperous, white, male, straight or Western. Each of us might well ask how deeply our identity depends on resentment of the "other," and the other's tribe. To dissolve this sense of separateness, this otherness, is the only true non-violence. The aristocrats of the coming age will be those who welcome each individual as unique, and not as the icon of a general category. Our great calling is simply to realize who we are: one world family.
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