Welcome back to Infinite Threads. I’m your host, Bob.
There’s something quietly painful about discovering we were wrong—not because someone told us we were, but because we began to see it ourselves. Today, we’re talking about a form of bigotry that hides in plain sight: the kind we don’t know we carry.
This is a conversation about unconscious bias… the inherited assumptions we didn’t question… the casual cruelty that blends into culture so seamlessly, we don’t realize we’re part of it. But it’s also a conversation about hope. Because when we allow love to turn the light on, even the deepest shadows lose their power.
It often begins with something small. A joke you repeat. A phrase you’ve heard all your life. A stereotype that’s “just part of how people talk.” You may not even realize it’s there—until you see the look in someone’s eyes when you say it. That flicker. That hesitation. That silence after laughter that doesn’t quite land.
That’s when the world shifts.
It’s humbling—painful, even—to realize you’ve been carrying something harmful inside you. Not on purpose. But still… it was there. Passed down like a family heirloom nobody wanted but nobody questioned.
It’s not always about race or religion. Sometimes it’s ableism. Sometimes it’s assumptions about gender. Sometimes it’s about who we think is “lazy,” or “dangerous,” or “worthy of love.”
The problem isn’t just that we say these things. It’s that we don’t hear ourselves. We don’t realize what we’re revealing.
There have been moments—too many, honestly—where I’ve looked back and thought, Did I really say that? or Why did I think that was okay?
I’ve caught myself making a “joke” that wasn’t kind. I’ve realized after the fact that something I said could have hurt someone I care about deeply. And when that happens, it’s not just embarrassment—it’s heartbreak.
Because I don’t want to be someone who causes harm. None of us do. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t.
The hardest part is realizing that love alone isn’t enough if it doesn’t also come with awareness. I might feel love—but if I’m not paying attention to how it moves through me, I can still do harm with it.
That was a hard lesson. But it changed me.
Unknowing bigotry is like a weed with deep roots. You can’t just cut the surface—you have to get into the soil. That means examining where your beliefs came from. Who told you certain people were “less than”? What systems benefitted you while costing someone else? Where did you learn to laugh at pain that wasn’t yours?
The moment you stop defending your intentions… and start reflecting on your impact… everything changes.
Love steps in here—not to shame you, but to guide you. It’s the friend who gently says, “I know you didn’t mean to, but that hurt.” It’s the inner voice that whispers, “There’s a better way to say that.” It’s the pause you learn to take before speaking.
It’s what saves us from staying the same.
We don’t grow in isolation. Some of my most important awakenings came because someone loved me enough to tell me the truth—or because someone trusted me enough to show me their pain.
When a friend says, “That made me feel invisible,” and you listen instead of getting defensive… that’s a sacred moment. That’s where love is doing its work.
And sometimes it’s not words. It’s watching someone exist with strength and grace in a world that wasn’t built for them—and realizing how much you’ve taken for granted.
That’s happened to me over and over again.
Love doesn’t just ask us to be kind. It asks us to be awake. To be willing to look again. To listen longer. To say, “I’m sorry—I didn’t know. But I’m learning. And I want to do better.”
It asks us to change jokes we used to tell. To correct someone in the room when silence would be easier. To be uncomfortable if that discomfort leads to growth.
Not because we want to be perfect—but because we want to be loving.
And we can’t claim to be loving while ignoring harm. Even if it’s unintentional. Even if we were “just joking.” Even if “that’s how we were raised.”
If this episode is bringing something up for you—something you said, or thought, or believed in the past—please know you’re not alone. The journey of unlearning is hard. But it’s beautiful.
It means you’re still becoming. It means the thread of love is tugging at something in you… and you’re listening.
That’s courage.
And that courage is what we need—individually and as a culture—to stop passing down harm disguised as humor, tradition, or truth. The world doesn’t change because perfect people arrive. It changes because imperfect people wake up.
People like you. People like me.
This episode isn’t here to condemn you. It’s here to remind you: there’s more light available than you’ve ever known. More room to grow. More ways to love. More opportunities to reflect that love in how you speak, act, and advocate.
But first, we have to be willing to ask:
What am I not seeing?
Who have I accidentally hurt?
And what would it look like to love more deeply than I have before?
Let those questions live in you today. Let them pull the threads of growth through every thought. Because unknowing bigotry only stays hidden when we turn away. But when we face it—with humility and courage—something powerful happens.
Love begins to see.
And through that seeing, love begins to heal.
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