> I think there is an analogy to the body's defenses against viruses. The body recognizes certain shapes from the outside surface of viruses and attacks anythi

> I think there is an analogy to the body's defenses against viruses. The body recognizes certain shapes from the outside surface of viruses and attacks anything sharing those shapes. This is quite scary. This is probably how racism begins in the first place. Here, your defence mechanism seems to help you find bigots. But the same process probably is used by bigots to be prejudiced against others based on their "shapes". Imagine a bigot who has been tuned to view brown people as potential threats. Even if they interact with a brown person nominally, their "defense mechanism" will concoct a reality based on the "pattern matching ". I think this is a very scary sentiment and that we should try to go beyond prejudice and this type of defense mechanism. We should debate with each other without appealing to our own prejudices. There are many good arguments against the memo. I don't think it helps to be instantly prejudiced against it. We can address it reasonably.