"Do ingrained prejudices count as bigotry? "
They can do if they are acted on.
My generation was brought up to believe that foreigners, especially those from our former Empire, were inferior in some way, in some cases, rather like children who needed protecting from their own ignorance and shortcomings - we were even taught to sing hymns about them as being in "errors chain".
In Ireland, we came across the "little black babies" syndrome, where generous people would collect money to send to the "poor blacks" to help them develop - patronising, rather than bigoted.
I always found, especially when working with the Travellers, that the best way to overcome this in most people is to actually get people with this sot of bigotry to meet the people they regarded in this way
We have great memories of taking Traveller singers and storytellers around schools and local events in London and putting them in front of audiences of Londoners - magic!
One Travellers group in East London mounted a campaign to have the "no Travellers served here" signs removed from local shops and pubs.
The owner of one of the most resistant pubs sent round his barman to the site we were working on and told them , "I don't mean you people, you're always welcome".
Most people, I believe, are kind, tolerant and welcoming once you have found a way in to their world.
Jim Carroll