Is being simple-minded ever an excuse to be racist? Why or why not?

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I read an answer recently about a German doctor who was posted in Auschwitz yet refused to participate in the Holocaust. He consistently assisted and fought for Jews in a world that was incredibly hostile to them.

Towards the end of his life his outlook veered sharply in the direction of bigotry, the rest of the world was quite understanding that he was going senile and was simply regressing back to his childhood, where you simply couldn’t get away from racism. It gets embedded deeply into your brain and just comes out when you don’t have any conscious control left.

This is why schizophrenics so often exhibit seemingly violent bigotry in weaker moments and why we quietly excuse our racist grandparents. This stuff is bigger than we are. Our conscious minds are only so strong and we regress whenever we can’t “keep it together,”

Racism is just easier to grasp than more-nuanced world views, it takes less mental energy to dream up and defend. When the mind feels attacked, it often retreats back into itself and stubborn patterns of belief take hold.

This sort of excuse only goes so far. We can and should impose a moral obligation on everyone who can participate in fighting bigotry of all forms, to fight it where and when they can. The first step, in my opinion, is the recognition and study of what racism actually is, the sheer size and weight of it, and it’s origins deep inside traditions, cultures, and minds.