My university scares me

Seriously, one year ago something like this would have resulted in MAJOR drama and the shunning of certain individuals in the class, but people who attend the university are so much more mature than high school students that it's almost bizarre. So this is what happened:

I think I mentioned in an earlier blog entry that I have this classmate who - while being really nice and polite - also happens to be racist, homophobic, and a supporter of a "white nationalist" political party. Anyways, I wasn't aware that I was the only one who knew about his political views, but apparently last night or earlier today the shit had hit the fan and the rest of the group we both hang with found out.

We all sat down at a table like we always do, but everyone was acting a bit odd. Suddenly the guy in question said "so is it time we talk this through?" I pretty quickly caught on to what was being discussed, since he continued by saying something like "we have had such great times together here in school, so it would be unfortunate if something like conflicting political views put a stop to that"

Then Daniel, the one in the group that I'm closest to, said "Well it's not like we're going to pretend that you don't exist. It's fine so long as we can discuss it with you..." and then it basically went on like that. Nobody ever got upset, everyone just made their views on the topic clear and then exchanged arguments for a bit. Obviously, this guy feels the way he does because of a reason, and I happen to know that he grew up in an area that suffers from poor integration, and where there are a lot of "street thugs" of foreign descent. Obviously his views aren't going to change over night, especially if people who are supposed to be his friends call him out on them, and for once I was not the only one who thought so far ahead.

I think it's really cool that people with so different opinions and personalities can still get along so well together: In our group we have, aside from the guy who got confronted today, two communists (one of which have made the literal statement that "when the revolution comes, the capitalist pigs will be the first to get lined up against the wall and shot"), one Christian fundamentalist (who says that ancient history never happened, since it conflicts with the timeline in the Bible. He is also a royalist.), one guy who is basically an anarchist, two relatively "normal" people, and then there's me. XD

Somehow we all see past those differences (although we all agree that the Christian fundie is a crazy person, but we still let him hang out with us), and hopefully our friend will be able to apply that way of thinking the day when he redefines his views on ethnicity and race. 🙂​