I am a racist, a sexist, and a homophobe. I discriminate against those of lower "class", against those with physical deformities, and against the stupid. I am scared of the insane, and I am short with the stressed. I am a bigot, and I know it.

The world I grew up in gave me words for many things, such as "shoe", and "hat". Since kindergarten, when pictures were held up, and the class was asked to call out the name of things, I have been quick to say that a thing is a "ball", a "horse", a "monkey". But the habits of the classroom don't fade, and in the world I find, unbidden, the labels I have learned being laid upon those things which I see. The world gave me other labels as well, "fag", "chink", and "trash", and these labels too, lay upon my sight.

Forget about tolerance, forget about equality. Let's talk about hatred. Every single time I look at a child and find the label "nigger" laid upon them, I feel angry and powerless, because the world has made this word so common, that I cannot forget it. My world is filled with people that I hate, because my language hates them. There is no "acceptable use", there is no "individual case". The hatred which lashes out on stage with words is the same which lashes out in an ally with a brick.

Buying acceptance of one group at the expense of another is as evil as the bigotry we are trying to fight; how dare you declare that ANY group seeking equality is not seeking civil rights. Don't talk to me about how the blacks were more oppressed than the gays, so they 'own' the term "Civil Rights". Don't talk to me of biology, or the bible. I don't care. My language has forced me to see people, men, women, children, who are as alone and scared and confronted by the world as I am, as the enemy; and I want to change my language.

I do not want to hate these people. I do not want my children to hate them. I do not want my children, or my children's children, to enslave, to abuse, or to degrade anyone. I am a bigot, but I wish a different fate for my children.