They say that when we are born, we are a clean slate. We are born ready to learn, to love, and perhaps to hate.
Years of research and experience have taught us that we can create a circle of love and respect or instead create a whirlwind of fear and hate amongst our children and, yes, some adults.
What does it take to hate others?
You can demonize a whole population by making them less than human and thus make it easier to starve, torture, or kill them. This happens every day around the world.
In the process, you can deny them education, voting rights, clean water, and food. You could deny them access to government facilities and decide that the judicial system can discriminate against them. You can find ways to imprison these demonized people quicker and for a more extended period than the people in power.
Take, for example, the steps that were taken to move the indigenous of the USA to barren lands and the lives lost. They had branded these FIRST AMERICANS …savages who were not considered human. Thus, they could take away their lands and move them to barren reservations where, in the process, many died.
Look at how enslaved Black people were brought to this country as if they were but an agricultural animals and how lands were stolen from Mexican farmers and ranchers. And yes, lynching was used against many as a way of oppression blacks, Mexicans, and Indians. And the vestiges of this fear and hate still exist today and have infected the highest courts of the land.
Isn’t this an excellent way to develop a class of people who might want to hate you?
Internationally, we see lands controlled by a superpower that denies the people statehood, water, electricity, and the right to move freely. Some believe that those oppressed will never come to power. So why should they worry about them and their lives of misery?
South Africa starved and killed so many in their efforts to maintain an apartheid system and demonized the ANC, the African National Congress. And daily, they told the world how evil Nelson Mandela was.
The United Nations and the USA, with their power, dollars, and influence, are silent while people’s rights are being abused.
For example, how can we give one country [Israel] $3.6 billion every year, and nothing is given to speak of to a neighboring territory under that powerful country’s control?
Some speculate that if we took this $3.6 billion with the border budget of $9.93 billion, one could develop economic industrial and agricultural centers in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean that would pay a decent wage of $15 an hour. Thus, many would not have to come to the USA to have a decent life, and this infusion of money would help the economies of these countries.
But, for now, we allow a large segment of Americans to demonize the immigrants coming from the South as being killers, rapists, and drug lords. While at the same time accepting the cheap labor of those working in the construction, agriculture, food, and hotel industries. Those who hate these immigrants should not eat in businesses that employ these people if they fear them so much. If they had to pay a full wage in a restaurant or hotel, it would be much more than they are now willing to spend. But, because they have demonized this population, they can hold them working as indentured servants to the almighty dollar.
Immigrants and refugees who flee their homelands are fleeing violence, starvation, oppression, and a sure death if they stay. The children will remember who killed their families and destroyed their homes and will want justice or revenge.
Revolutions come from something other than some academic thesis about human rights, although it is helpful to have this knowledge. The driving force for change is the oppression of a people. While change is complex, and many innocents will die, there comes a time when the oppressed will rise and demand their human rights and their place in history.
Power is the most dangerous addiction, and those who have it will do anything to stay in power and continue to oppress others. Would you like people to hate you, or would you rather have people to respect and appreciate living with you in a fair and free community?
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