Welcome to episode

of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast.

My apologies for having missed a couple of weeks. I had food poisoning last week.

And honestly, it hit me like a two by four. I won't go into too much detail,

but suffice it to say that at one point, I felt like Luther Abel must have when he was devoured

by those creatures. God rest his soul. If he had one, we'll never know. So I've been trying to put my finger

on what precisely it is that bothers me so much about some of the anti-Israel protests that I've seen.

And I think I've worked it out.

It's that much of the bigotry on display is different from the bigotry, whether soft or hard,

that I have seen in my own experience.

Now, I don't have an especially well-developed framework to describe this,

but broadly speaking, I think I'd place racial or religious or cultural bigotry into two groups.

Intuitive and learned.

By intuitive, I mean the sort of stupid stuff that kids sometimes do when they encounter someone different.

Perhaps a new student arrives at your school and he has a thick accent and because you're a kid, you mimic it.

Now, that's not actually bigotry in the classic sense because in most cases you don't mean it.

But it is playing around with stereotypes and marking out differences.

And it can sometimes matter because it can make the people at whom

it's aimed feel really terrible. I'm sure I was guilty of this myself at times when I was a little

kid. I'm pretty sure everyone has been. I'm also sure that when it was pointed out to me that

I was being mean, I stopped. And that's the first time.

The second sort I've encountered is learned bigotry. Now, I don't say this to praise myself,

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