[kohito]

How many "exceptions" have to come to our attention before we change the rule?

Google Dwayne Betts. He is a tour-de-force. He wants to dedicate his life to helping others, but despite the life he has lived since serving his time in prison, he was nearly prevented from practicing law in the state of Connecticut.

"In conversations", he said "lawmakers will look at me and say 'you're an exception.' Yeah, well, in 2005, I wasn't. And I want to fight for that guy."

You shouldn't have to be as exemplary as Dwayne or this law professor in order to not be written-off from society.

[msla]

One of the worst aspects of "conversational racism", the kind of racism which manifests itself in talking about attitudes and expression of opinions, is "but they're one of the good ones": "Oh, I don't like members of group Y, they're all crooks, but I like that person. They're one of the good ones."

It's so bad because it makes it impossible to refute blanket assertions by pointing to specific examples. The usual understanding of "the exception that proves the rule" (not any of the sensical interpretations of that saying, but the usual understanding of it) is a broader example of this: I have a blanket assertion, you disprove it by pointing to a contradictory example, and my belief in that blanket assertion gets stronger, as opposed to weaker, due to that thought-terminating cliche.