It's the weekend. Four of us are together for a night of dining, dancing and friendship.

We are standing in a popular bookstore off Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., well known as the stylish gay area of the city. Crowds wait to fill the all-night cafe in the back.

Bob and I, with the men we love, are talking and laughing at ease in an environment where we can be ourselves more easily than ever before.

The exhilaration created from the evening's mixture of alcohol and bodies pressed together on the dance floor is still in me. Two men in front of us hold hands in public.

For a moment, I dare believe the type of world I hope for can be realized. I venture to believe it exists in enclaves of freedom and liberalism across the country even now.

But that moment is soon shattered.

"Nigger!"

The word shoots from Bob's mouth aimed at an African-American woman pushing through the crowd. She does not hear him and keeps moving.

I stand by, silently pondering what to say, if anything. I ask myself how someone so plagued by prejudice can direct similar hatred toward others.

Unfortunately, it is a question I have had to ask repeatedly.

-- -- --

African-American women. I often hear stories about their personal experiences with racism on campus.

One day I receive a plain brown envelope in the mail. There is no return address. An uncomfortable feeling comes over me.

Upon opening the letter in the privacy of my own room, I find a collage of magazine scripts pasted word-by-word to form a letter of contempt about my sexual orientation. Four more letters appear by the time the semester ends.

Before it does, however, I discover the authors of these anonymous insults are my roommates.

-- -- --

"Learn fucking English before you come to this country!" Todd, a former roommate, bellows as he slams down the phone. "Your foreign friends have enough special privileges just being able to come to school in America," he tells me.

One year later I am talking to a prominent officer in a leading international student organization -- the same man who was on the other end of that phone call. The Lesbian and Gay Student Alliance has applied for membership to the University Student Executive Council (now the University Student Advisory Board).

He tells me he will not support their bid for a seat on the council because they do not merit "special privileges." He even goes as far as to tell me the international community does not have "those kind" in their ranks.

It was then I began asking how victims of hatred and discrimination can also become perpetrators of hatred and discrimination.

-- -- --

In a lecture here at Penn State last week, Jamie Washington, assistant director of residential life at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, provided some answers.

He pointed out that individuals often feel the prejudice directed toward them is somehow separate from and different than other prejudices. The outcry is: "My pain is worse than your pain, so pay some attention to me!"

"The connectedness of all the oppressions," Washington said,"is that they are all about pain and how people hurt. And oppression hurts all of us, not just those who are targeted."

-- -- --

I owe my readers an apology: I have been a coward and an accomplice to oppression.

I wondered silently at Bob's racial animosity but never confronted him with it. I told myself there was no use in ruining everyone's evening; the woman didn't hear anything and left without incident.

But Bob's hostility remains.

We must all take responsibility for eradicating the prejudice and bias entrenched in our society. Those of us who are members of targeted groups carry a special responsibility.

While we work for our specific cause, we must remember that we are not simply fighting for black rights, gay rights or women's rights. We are fighting for the principal of equity which must be extended to all those who experience intolerance.

But we must do it at a personal level.

It is easy to condemn a lifeless computer message against gay men and lesbians, or a faceless poster of racial epithets. It is also easy to take a stand against those responsible for these actions. Because we rarely meet the individuals behind the headline, we can easily attach the ugly face of hatred to them.

It is a far more difficult task when the ugly face of hatred surfaces in the faces of those who are close to us.

The next time I see Bob, we're going to have a talk about racism.