“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.”
No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela
Hate is defined as ‘ a feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action’. While I understand that circumstances can bring about the emotion and reaction that is hate, I also do not understand how some people use it.
Are there good and bad sides to hate? Maybe it’s like a belief, it stirs the soul and sparks life into characters that previously had nothing in their lives.
In society, we use the word hate unconsciously to describe almost anything we have a slight dislike to. ‘I hate him/her…I hate when you do this…I hate being alone…I hate going there etc’ Do we really mean it when we say we hate someone? For that matter do we really mean it when we say we love someone? Or are we just saying things we think we want others to hear?
Racism is man’s gravest threat to man–the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
If it’s hard to understand how and why we use hate then racism is something that, to me, can never be understood.
I have friends from different countries. I have never once looked down my nose at them or ever believed I was a better person then they were just because of my skin colour. In my opinion racism is a coward’s way out of dealing with their issues. ‘It can’t be my fault, so it has to be his/hers’.
We constantly contradict ourselves by seeking out something new to help enhance our lives while at the same time fearing the unknown. That’s what I think racism partly stems from, the unknown. We’re becoming more and more introvert to such an extent that no one knows their neighbours anymore.
As Ireland is beginning to find out, things are changing. People from all walks of live are living in the same housing areas and no longer have you got specific areas for specific ethnic groups. So does that makes things better or worse?
I would hope better but I don’t know. My belief is that in any walk of life a person who specifically enters a country to take as much as they can for free and not put in the same effort as others to work for what they get deserves contempt, no matter who they are or where they are from.
Persecution is hard to understand, not just with racism but across the board be it gender, sexual preference and the like.
Some hate and never know why, possibly because their Parents and Grandparents have felt the same way so it’s a mindset and the only way forward for them.
I understand it is an emotion that is difficult to control, but to hate one person is difficult enough…to hate an entire race because they do not look like you?
Does that make sense?
Friday, June 29th, 2007 and is filed under Love Thy Neighbour.
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