Bigotry Exception

Valentina: Tony, wake up. I know you love Riff, but he hates Puerto Ricans. That ain't you.
Tony: [dismissingly] Riff doesn't hate you.
Valentina: I married a gringo. He thinks that makes me a gringa. Which it don't. And I ain't.
Tony: Well, when it comes to guys like Riff and me, when things ain't familiar, we just get this instinct to, you know... [punches his palm]

— West Side Story (2021)

A character who is well-liked or respected by bigoted individuals or institutions despite belonging to whatever group that's being discriminated against. Perhaps they had a friendship that predated whatever turned the bigots into bigots, perhaps there was a Fire Forged Friendship, perhaps they make the top guy laugh and no one crosses the top guy, perhaps they are so good they are worth making an exception for, perhaps they're just Token Minority cases for the others to point to as evidence that they're not really bigots at all. Whatever the case, it's obvious they are an exception.

Compare and contrast You Are a Credit to Your Race, If It's You, It's Okay, and Some of My Best Friends Are X, the former generally being an attempt at a well-meaning statement just layered with plenty of unfortunate subtext, while the latter involves the trope invoker being in denial about their bigotry. If the bigotry in question is misogyny, this can overlap with Not Like Other Girls.

Super-Trope to Bigot with a Crush.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Downplayed in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War. Shirogane managed to get elected Student Council President twice despite the fact that most of the student body normally looks down on "impures" like him. Despite his popularity, his commoner background was mentioned to be an issue when he was running for reelection.
• One Piece: While never reaching the point of attraction, Arlong takes an uncharacteristically friendly attitude towards Nami, perhaps a byproduct of having her around for almost a decade. This in spite of his pathological disgust for humans like Nami and their supposed "weakness".

Comic Strips

• In the regular Viz strip "Mrs. Brady, Old Lady", there is a Running Gag in which Mrs. Brady will express extreme racism, and then, shortly afterwards, fulsomely praise her GP, the never-seen "Dr. Chakraborty".

Fan Works

• Bequeathed from Pale Estates:
  • Oberyn and the other Dornish contingent understandably despise the Lannisters. Most of them exempt Gwyn due to her age and good nature. Oberyn comes to terms with his distrust of her after much Character Development and seeing Gwyn risk her life on Lyarra's behalf.
  • Keavan Forrestor hates all Ironborn for raiding, raping and killing his people, except Theon.
• In Codex Equus, the Changelings of the Autumn Court are generally looked down upon by the Royal Changelings of both Spring and Summer Courts for "rejecting" their love, leadership, and protection, as well as undermining their royal legitimacy by simply existing. The only exception is Hive Thorax, led by the newly-Ascendant King/High-Prince Thorax - no one knew which court Thorax and his purified Changeling subjects would belong to, so they unofficially deemed them "Autumn" until they could figure it out. What also helps is that Thorax and his peers are the only ones who managed to break their racial Curse on themselves, which is considered to be impossible.
• Crimson and Emerald: Endeavor is really misogynistic and sees women as subordinate and over emotional. Despite this, he was very good friends with Midoriya Inko and Hatsume Tomoko during his high school years and early career. However his misogyny also terminated his friendship when Inko and Tomoko had issue on how he treated his wife. Endeavor didn't understand why they would have a problem with him abusing his wife, it wasn't like he's treating them like that.
• LearningToFly: Wan Shi Tong loathes humans since a firebender trashed his library after using the knowledge he gained for it to worsen the ongoing world war, but he softens towards Zuko when the boy comes to him genuinely seeking enlightenement from the past and swearing to help restore the library.
• In Memories Like Ghost Stories, Shen Qingqiu Does Not Like Men to the point he cannot even stand being in the same room than another male, courtesy of his former master's attempt to sexually abusing him. However, he allows Liu Qingge to touch him and enter in his bedroom, as the War God tried to defend him from his former master in a Pensieve Flashback.
• Due to her Dark and Troubled Past involving the Galra, Allura in The Princess and the Paladin has little trouble viewing all of them as Always Chaotic Evil. This view hardly changes when she finds out Keith (her boyfriend) is half Galra, assuring him that he's nothing like the rest. This only leads to a fight between the two until Allura realizes just how prejudiced she was being and resolves to change.
• While Starscream utterly loathes humans in Code Prime, Schneizel is the only human he has nothing negative to say about, and treats with respect.
• This Bites!: Fishmen Chew and Kuroobi despises humans due to the suffering and enslavement the latter race has done to the former, though they make an exception to Koala since she was enslaved by the Celestial Dragons like many fishmen and traveled with them back when they were on Fisher Tiger's crew, and thus would sympathize with their plight. It's deconstructed, as Cross points out that by making an exception for her, they not only open the floodgate for other humans but the rules get reflected back on themselves. In any case, Koala is furious at the two for the crimes they committed on the humans in Conomi under Arlong's orders, regarding them with disdain when they meet up years later.

Films — Live-Action

• West Side Story (2021): As in the original stage musical, the Jets are bigoted towards New York's Puerto Rican community. The exception to this is 90 year old Canon Foreigner Valentina, Doc's widow who has been a part of their community since before they were born and still runs the local drug store following her husband's death. Valentina herself is uncomfortable with this, reminding Tony that she's still Puerto Rican even though she was married to a white man.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
  • Eddie Valiant may hate toons in general due to his Freudian Excuse, but he is very cordial to Betty Boop despite this. It's implied this stems from the two being friends who go back quite a bit, possibly from before said Freudian Excuse soured him towards toons.
  • Judge Doom clearly has a hatred for toons, and yet the Toon Patrol are his primary subordinates during the film.

Literature

• In the Imperial era, Star Wars Legends Grand Admiral Thrawn, first appearing in The Thrawn Trilogy, is a Chiss in a military that disdains anybody who isn't a human male. Emperor Palpatine was so impressed with Thrawn's sheer skill as a soldier and strategist that he made an exception to the Empire's High Human Culture ideal for him.
• Gone with the Wind's Archie dislikes women, except for town sweetheart Melanie Wilkes. To the point that when someone insults her husband, he's ready to kill the man out of respect for her rather than him.
• In their schooldays, the Muggle-born Lily Evans was this to Snape in Harry Potter, until he finally crossed a line and she ended their friendship.
• J. R. R. Tolkien's elves and dwarves have a mutual distrust, but in The Lord of the Rings, and especially played up in the movie, Legolas and Gimli make exceptions for each other.

Live-Action TV

• Detective Roger Gaffney from Homicide: Life on the Street is an incompetent, racist slob who flat-out calls Pembleton "boy" at one point. However, he's smart enough to stay loyal to his mostly black bosses and toe the line, which results in him rapidly being promoted despite lacking any real skills to justify it.
• Law & Order:
  • A suspect in "Homesick" was a deliveryman who worked at an upscale grocery store. He ended up being fired for slipping a racist note about Black people into one of the cereal boxes, which a Black family who shopped at the store happened to find. Upon being confronted by detectives, he willingly admitted to it and "freedom of speech" protection, but said that he liked the family he offended, calling them his best customers, saying that they were great tippers and that he didn't want to piss them off.
  • "Angel" has a shopkeeper who was bigoted towards Puerto Ricans not act too surprised that one was a suspect in the abduction of a little girl. He even said (in front of Curtis, no less) that he hoped they gained their independence from the states and said the only one worth respect was baseball great Roberto Clemente (which possibly makes his insult cut even deeper due to both openly offending a fellow Latino but by saying the only one worth their salt is dead.)
• The Twilight Zone (1959): In "He's Alive", Peter Vollmer is a committed neo-Nazi but the only thing in the world that he loves is Ernst Ganz, a survivor of The Holocaust. He even says that Ernst is like a father to him. However, after Ernst disrupts a public meeting and puts the growth of his organization at risk, Peter murders him at the urging of his Mysterious Benefactor, who turns out to be Adolf Hitler.

Music

• The music video for the humorous song "Marly-Gomont" by French rapper of Congolese descent Kamini includes a racist villager from the eponymous place where Kamini grew up. He tells Kamini "I don't like blacks, I don't like Arabs, but I like you, even if you're black".

Tabletop Games

• Necromunda: While the citizens of House Cawdor have a religious hatred of anything that deviates from the human norm, the Big Guy, Little Guy mutants that make up the 3rd Edition Stig-Shambler House Brutes are tolerated despite their deformities. Why such mutants are given a measure of acceptance is a mystery to some outside the House but it is simply because the Undying Loyalty of the Cawdor population causes them to accept anything their leaders decree, and the Cawdor nobles have decreed the Stig-Shamblers to be useful to their cause.

Theater

• Implied in Margin for Error, where the fanatical Nazi Otto Horst has a trusted lawyer named Benjamin Rosenblatt.
  Moe: If he gets you off on this, you oughta make him an honorary Aryan.
• In Fiddler on the Roof, the local policeman is often easier on Tevye (until he's given orders to stage a pogrom in the village) and Tevye seems to like him better than most Gentiles.
  Tevye: It's almost a pity you're not a Jew.
  Policeman: [laughs] That's what I like about you, Tevye. Always joking. [goes on for a bit, then stops laughing as he realizes Tevye meant it]

Web Animation

• If Disney Cartoons Were Historically Accurate: Although the princess is nice to the little Jews in the forest, she still seems to hate all Jews in general.

Western Animation

• In The Boondocks episode "The Story of Jimmy Rebel", a racist white country singer named Jimmy Rebel befriends a black guy named Uncle Ruckus, though this is because Ruckus hates black people as well. Jimmy decides that Ruckus is one exception for his hatred of black people, and even performs a song for Ruckus titled, "One Good Nigger". In the ending, Jimmy admits that he doesn't really hate black people that much anymore... though he's still very racist against Hispanics. As for Uncle Ruckus himself, he hates all black people except for his mother and brothers, who he loves and has remained on good terms with; and despite his constant racist remarks, he's good friends with and has some genuine respect for Robert.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: All of the adult villains the KND faces are Child Haters. And yet, Mr. Boss has children of his own who he loves. It's just everyone else's kids he hates.
• Danny Phantom: Freakshow has an utter contempt for ghosts, and yet he genuinely cares for his ghostly henchwoman Lydia. The feeling is mutual as she serves him out of her own free will, unlike Freakshow's other ghost henchman, who he brainwashed.
• Bender from Futurama is a robot who despises humans, yet ironically his best friend is a human named Fry. In the episode "The Sting", Bender at Fry's funeral (in what turns out to be Leela's coma dream) claims that whenever he said "Kill all humans!"...
  Bender: ...I'd always say "except one". Fry was that one!
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: While most of Mewni are rather racist towards monsters, they have no problem with the non-mewman royal families of other kingdoms, such as the Ponyhead and Lucitor dynasties, who have been allies of the royal Butterfly family since Queen Solaria's reign, after her older brother, Jushtin, sealed alliances with them. Star begins to question this, and Tom admits that he and his family (Well, most of it) are technically monsters who mostly get away with it because they're rich and royal. According to the The Magic Book of Spells, this has been going on for centuries.
• Book Three of Infinity Train has Grace try to do this. It begins with Grace and Simon being separated from The Apex, the cult that Grace created in honor of the true conductor. The cult has two rules. Get your numbers as high as possible and the residents of the train are nothing but glorified toys who want to kick you off your rightful train (Grace dubbed them Nulls). As they try to make their way back, they run into a small child named Hazel who agrees to join the Apex. Grace happily educates her about the cult only to discover that she's a Null. By then, she's developed such an affection for Hazel that she says it's ok and that she can join the Apex anyway. Hazel declines, calls Grace out on her bigotry and decides to go with Amelia instead.

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