Nowadays, you suffer the same risks - ostracism, career loss, possible assault - for being perceived as racist that you would have encountered a century ago for daring to question racist ideology.

A lot of people expend great time and effort explaining why they don't like me, but none of them ever try to explain why their opinion should matter to me. I think most of them sense, but would never be brave enough to admit, their subordinate role in the food chain relative to me.

If I’d been talking about black trash, I might be lynched. If I was talking about white trash, I’d merely be another torchbearer in an ongoing national lynching.

You truly need to witness me goo-gooing and coo-cooing and making up goofy little songs to glean a full appreciation of how nauseating I can be. This is another instance where things seemingly don't add up - how can this vile, hateful, violent, misogynist, racist, loathsome, repugnant, worthless, reprehensible subhuman be so insanely tender and kind to little doggies and kitty-cats?

There were people whom I considered friends or loved ones who either abandoned me or betrayed me in ways I'd never have suspected. But there were others who had been barely acquaintances of mine whose loyalty and efforts on my behalf made me realize that not everyone was as inherently rotten as I'd previously believed. So it caused a violent split in my view of humanity - people turned out to be far worse and far better than I'd ever dreamed possible.

Equality is a nice idea, but it's entirely impossible to prove.

I've realized there are far more efficient and devastating methods of disturbing people than merely sloshing around in the pigpen with obvious, profane, scatological, flat-brained, grade-school offensiveness.