Kike, wop, chink, slope, spic, nigger, raghead, redneck, faggot, honkey, asshole. Do these words create hate and anger as one reads them? Will people believe that I am a racist because I choose to start my article with these words? Television shows our political and religious leaders damning homosexuality, are these images creating hate?
When there are stories and images of police beating up citizens is this creating anger? In today’s social media barrage of images and words, we are informed in ways we have never been in history. Is that allowing us to create more benefit or is it actually creating more emotional reactions?
To show how long we can stay divided as a country, we start with the issue of race. Slavery shows us something can keep us divided for hundreds of years, even sparking an internal war. Has all of the anger and hostility over the years actually kept us from creating substantial solutions to the problems of race? Do we escalate items of race even when it may not be race related? If a white person breaks into someone’s house and kills a person of color, does that make it a hate crime? If a white person drives down a street and are pulled out of their car and killed by a person of color, is that a hate crime? We don’t always know if a person walking down the street is gay or straight so if a crime is committed against them, is it always motivated by hate? Whenever a person of color is questioned about something, is it right for the person of color to be offended simply because they are a person of race? If a person of color calls a white person an asshole and the white person responds with a racial slur does that make it race related or anger related? There are a lot of questions when it comes to this issue so when are we going to start answering them instead of always highlighting the division that we have created?
I have been at a company that tried to outsourced jobs to another country. When we went through transition, I can understand why people become so called ‘racists’. When you give a culture jobs that they are not qualified for, they don’t do as well and don’t take pride in what they do, I can see it can make people angry and frustrated. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if a lot of people are called racists when they really are not. If all you see is the ‘bad seeds’ of a race and you assume that everyone of that race are the same, does that make you a racist or just judgmental? I have talked to some so called racists and I do not even think they know why they are racists, they just know they do not like those groups of people. Does thinking like that cause us to continue a division of hate? For a country that invites people to build a better life one would think we would try to spend more energy trying to fix this issue.
Another issue that seems to be on a lot of agenda’s is the issue of homosexuality. Like never before, an issue has been brought to the forefront of not only religious debates but also political debates. Basically, what we are saying is that it is our business how someone chooses to live their life or who they choose to love. If we allow this to happen, does that mean we can accept people telling us how to live our life or who to love? Do any of us even know what the real issue with homosexuality is? Is it because the Bible says it is wrong or because people use the Bible to tell us its wrong? The Bible does say homosexuality is wrong but it also says having sex before you are married, being an alcoholic and having sex out of marriage are on the same level as being a homosexual. Knowing that, do we cherry pick the Bible so we can bully people to believe what we believe? In a country that prides itself on freedom, we really do a good job of trying to instill our beliefs on other people. With this contradiction will a solution be easy to find? In the end, maybe the real issue is that they think it is more virtuous to blow your sperm into a vagina, no matter whose it is, versus in your ass.
Does the killing of a child create hate and anger? When images of police being brutal to its own citizen’s are shown, how can we expect to solve any problems? We forget that the police are suppose to protect and serve everyone, not just the protestors but the people and place that is being protested. The police do have an obligation to treat the protestors with respect and it is a shame that highlighting a few idiots that go beyond the line blinds the good side of the police. At the same time when an illegal act is being done, the police do have the right to stop that act from happening and arresting the people that are responsible for it. If both sides continue to fight each other, will anything come of yet another division in this country?
Does political correctness in all of its good intentions really cause more anger and segregation? Instead of calling people human beings or Americans, we give them labels. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, little people, mentally challenged or obese. We seem to be the only country that labels their citizens and do we even know what the criteria is for those labels? When President Obama was elected, did we focus on the hope that he could lead us to, no the first thing was to concentrate on the color of his skin. It was great to elect our first African American president but if he fails in his job, does his skin color really matter? Is the fact that we categorize people automatically put them in a position of prejudice and keep us segregated?
Gandhi brought together an entire country to win their independence but once they divided into Pakistan, the violence started over. Throughout our history, the Revolutionary War, WWII and 9/11, has shown when we come together, we can achieve anything. Maybe hate will never be abolished but do we think this country will thrive if we continue to spend our energy creating hate and segregation? So the next time you see images on television or on the internet, ask yourself if it is there to create hate or is it to bring the issue to light to help us decrease the division?