Healing begins by seeing through the hate…
Her words kept gnawing at me, repeating in my mind. They weren’t even spoken to me but to my friend, Shelby. Yet they wouldn’t go away.
Shelby had told me about a post on Facebook that caught her eye. A friend had posted her perspective on the Democratic National Convention. Specifically, the dominant message to vote “as if our lives depended on it”.
People agreed and disagreed with the post. Since everyone seemed respectful, Shelby decided to add her perspective to the discussion.
That’s when a person she didn’t know (let’s call her Mary) responded to her comment with these words…
“That’s why I hate all Democrats.”
Six words. Six words that kept eating away at me. Six words I’ve tried to ignore. Yet, as I watched the Republican National Convention a week ago, I knew I could ignore them no longer. Listening to talk of Marxist right wingers, Socialist liberals, unlawful protestors and violent mobs, I knew I had to respond. To express the pain in my heart.
This post is not about Democrats or Republicans. It’s not about politics.
It’s about US. About who we are.
About our humanity — or lack of it.
Let’s imagine that I am a Democrat and it was my comment to which Mary responded. The question her six words raised inside of me was this.
“How could Mary, who has never met me, declare hatred for me? She knows nothing about me, about who I am or the life I’ve lived. How could Mary categorically hate me?”
The answer I’ve come up with is this.
Mary cannot hate ME. All she can hate is what she THINKS I represent. She can only hate who she THINKS I am. In this case, a Democrat. She hates whatever she THINKS a Democrat is.
The same is true for anyone who says “I hate Republicans.”
It is true for all the hate language we hear or read these days.
“I hate gays.”
“I hate black people (or brown).”
“I hate white people.”
“I hate racists.” “I hate white supremacists.”
“I hate Jews/Christians/Muslims”
And the list goes on as we hear people say, “I hate rioters, protestors, politicians, or the police.”
It seems to never end.
In labeling people, we stop seeing each other as fellow human beings. In grouping people together under one label, we stop seeing them as INDIVIDUALS. As equal children of the ONE God that all major religions profess.
In categorizing and labeling people, we dehumanize them. When we dehumanize others, we also dehumanize ourselves.
We stop recognizing and honoring our individual and shared experiences. We stop learning from each other. We stop listening to each other. And when we do that, we are no longer connected.
What naturally follows from this is the polarization we see in our world today. Members of one group claiming superiority over another. “Gang warfare” is the result as each group goes to war with the other to defend their beliefs and their “rights”, To protect their turf and their gang. All leading to more pain, suffering and violence — be it physical or emotional.
Keep in mind that this is the same dynamic that resulted in the hijacking of four planes on September 11, 2001. Those hijackers, members of Al Qaeda, hated AMERICANS as a group. They hated what they THOUGHT Americans were like and what they stood for. Nearly 3000 Americans needlessly died as a result — along with the 19 hijackers.
What their hatred of AMERICANS wouldn’t let them see is that the INDIVIDUALS they killed were like them in so many ways.
The same is true for Mary and Shelby. It’s true for all of us.
Consider, for example, the findings from the Human Genome Project. In terms of DNA, human beings are 99.9% the same — no matter the color of their skin or the area of the world in which they were born. No matter their education, political beliefs or religious upbringing.
Beyond this, what makes us more alike than different is our shared experience of being human.
Of being born. Of wanting to be loved. Of making mistakes. Of watching a sunrise or sunset. Of listening to music, singing or dancing. Of playing and working.
We all know what it’s like to feel afraid. To doubt ourselves. To be betrayed AND to betray. We have all known sickness and death, pain and grief, disappointment and achievement. We all know what it’s like to laugh and to cry.
And we all have similar hopes and dreams of creating a good life for ourselves and the ones we love.
Democrat or Republican, Gay or Straight, Black or White, Christian, Muslim or Jew — we all share this. We ALL experience this. In this, we are alike.
We are also alike in that we’ve all been wounded — physically, emotionally and/or spiritually. And we’ve all developed coping mechanisms to avoid getting hurt or feeling pain. This, too, is part of our shared human experience. Some strategies are healthy and healing. Others are not.
And one such coping mechanism is to blame our pain on someone else. To make it someone else’s fault. God knows I’ve done it. If you’re honest, you’ve done it too.
Once we make our pain someone else’s fault, now we have an ENEMY. We have someone to attack. We have someone to hurt — justifying it because they hurt us first. Someone who is DIFFERENT than us.
Democrats are the enemy. Republicans are the enemy. Gays, blacks, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, protestors are the enemy.
And what have humans, throughout history, done to enemies?
They’ve gone to war with them.
The result? More pain. More enemies. More grouping of people with labels and categories. And the cycle of separation, disconnection, and pain continues.
To categorize people gives us a false sense of belonging, i.e., to OUR group. It provides a false sense of superiority. It creates a false sense of purpose, i.e., to OPPOSE the other group.
And we forget the deeper truth that we ALREADY belong and that no one is innately superior. We forget (or never realize) that we were created for a much higher purpose. It’s easier to be AGAINST something than to create something new and better.
And yet that is what we are being invited to do. To create something new and better — not just for certain groups of people. But something that is better for ALL human beings.
Remembering that we are ALL human beings is the first step. INDIVIDUAL human beings who are more alike than different.
I am not so naive as to think it will be easy. Categorizing people — lumping them in groups — and then hating them is what’s easy. It’s easier to separate, label, or hate than to see the individual with acceptance and understanding.
This does not mean agreeing with the person. But disagreement does not have to divide us when we remember our similarities. When we remember the human experience we share.
Rather, it can lead us to deeper maturity, conversation, compassion, connectedness and wisdom. To love instead of hate.
How to begin?
I don’t have all the answers. But I do know that the first step in all transformation is awareness.
The second step might best be described with the words of Mahatma Gandhi.
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
We begin by recognizing when WE categorize individuals into groups. When we start labeling them — as if we already know who they are, what they believe, and why they believe it. When we ignore or close our minds to the fact that we are more alike than different.
It begins with us (you and me) no longer participating in the dehumanizing of others. Or of ourselves.
It begins with ONE person and ONE interaction. We can be the ones to stop arguing, rebutting, defending and judging. Instead, we can be curious and listen. We can practice respecting each individual as the innately worthy human being they are. We can seek acceptance and understanding even when we might not agree.
Because being heard, accepted and understood is what ALL human beings want.
In this, too, we are ALIKE.
