Does education remove bigotry?

The last couple of months have been specially hard, as you can imagine, for a bleeding lefty like me. And today, this and this happened. Those two tweets were a response to Rep. John Lewis saying, "I Don’t See Trump as a Legitimate President" in an interview to NBC. Rep. John Lewis, for those who don't know, is one of the important icons of the US Civil Rights movement. NPR describes him thusly in this article:

Lewis was one of the original Freedom Riders and a top lieutenant of [Martin Luther] King's, helping organize the March on Washington in 1963 and marching with King across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in 1965, where his skull was fractured.

Rep. John Lewis, literally, put his life on the line in the fight for civil rights. I have huge respect for the man and it is one of my greatest wishes to meet him in person at some point. I was quite disheartened to see Rep. Lewis attacked by the orange jackass, although not the least bit surprised.

I wondered, does this moron have no idea about the significance of Rep. Lewis's sacrifices and accomplishments? And then I saw this tweet from Hari Kondabolu and that got me thinking, does education really help or matter? Because, Trump is not uneducated. In fact, and I can't believe I am saying this, Trump and I went to the same school - Penn. There are plenty of educated bigots and plenty of uneducated liberals out there. I don't think it's just a lack of education that makes a bigot. I think it has more to do with one's company and upbringing.

Being in an echo chamber and being fed the same angry rhetoric over and over is probably what makes a bigot. Education can only dispel these things to a certain extent, because education, I believe, is only as effective as one makes it. In the end, I don't think education imbibes empathy. I see this happening in India as well. Many people who are quite close to me, my own family and friends, most of whom are quite educated and privileged tend to have closed minds. And their opinions are echoed and replayed which validates them. There is no one to give counter-opinions. Of course, I might be wrong in this opinion. And I am more than happy to discuss it with people holding different points of view than my own.