You should be able to say, 'yes I was thinking a racist thought.'

"You should be able to say, 'yes I was thinking a racist thought.' But a lot of the time, I think, people are afraid to admit they are having a racist thought because society then says that you are racist forever... and that's it. So there's no value in atoning..."

Trevor Noah explains in his excruciatingly adept and charming way, something that I have tried to convey over and over - there's a difference between having a racist thought and being racist. And it’s OK to have a racist thought.

Everybody has hateful [lazy] thoughts - women are crazy; men are only after one thing; white people are racist; poor people are lazy; dobermans are vicious; black people are criminals; Mexicans are rapists; rich people are assholes; gay people are perverted....but not everyone who has a hateful thought is hateful through and through.

We are here on earth to learn to dissolve these ridiculous, generalized, untrue thoughts.

We are here to have relationships with one another to help each other see these thoughts for what they are.

Only when we admit we have these lazy, hateful thoughts (A Course in Miracles calls them 'attack' thoughts) can we be forgiven. That's atonement: at-one-ment. We come back to Source at that point; we are one with True Love/God/Cosmic Consciousness/Infinite Intelligence once again.

These ridiculous thoughts are taught, they are not innate. They are the opposite of innate; they are the fantasies of the ego; created by the tribe...the hateful thoughts I have in the USA are different from the hateful thoughts I have in Australia.

So, have the thought, name it, let it go. Do not act on it.

There is not one person on earth who has not suffered hateful thought. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. This is our purpose on earth.