Stop, you're making the bigots look bad!
Why is it that every time I see you on a thread you're taking up for bigots?
I am compelled to wear your badge of "bigot" with pride. Reasonable people are evaluating their preconceived notions, and bouncing these off of their individual experiences. I have traveled internationally, and continue to have dealings with offshore companies. Within the guidelines and constraints that exist today. Name-calling and castigation, especially among fellow Americans, is impolite.
That's the idea.
The reaction the friend I've been talking about had after 9/11 was that he felt like he was in 1979 all over again, when he was the Iranian kid taking flack for what the nuts his family had fled were doing in Iran.
In another thread, I posted these two articles (here and here) about stereotype accuracy. Stereotypes have their usage, but the Derbyshire article (the second one) describes how reasonable people use stereotypes where he talks about the myths that give stereotypes a bad game. Read the sections that start with "Item: People ascribe a stereotype to everybody in the subject group" and "Item: Stereotypes blind us to individual characteristics". Those the define the line, in my opinion, between reasonable generalizations and bigotry. I recommend the book the Derbyshire article talks about, as well.