The Hoarding of Hate

Sometimes shit happens and I feel compelled to “go there,” to speak my mind. And so… To me it seems things have taken a turn in the U.S. that’s unlike anything I’ve seen over the past half-century. And, well, you know the Edmund Burke quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” With that on my mind, I write this particular blog as part of my stab at doing “something.”

First, I ask the reader to view these lyrics from the song “You've Got To Be Carefully Taught,” written by Rogers and Hammerstein back in 1949 for the musical, South Pacific:

You've got to be taught To hate and fear, You've got to be taught From year to year, It's got to be drummed In your dear little ear You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade, You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You've got to be carefully taught.

One of the themes of my novel, Curse Me Not, is to show how hoarding hate can be as deadly and tragic for the hoarder as it is for those hated. From observation alone, I’ve come to realize a hate “defect” in us comes not from being born with a demon seed (what nonsense!). It comes from being taught to hate.

Hate has to be taught—indeed, carefully taught—to get a foothold in the psyche of an innocent child. As for the “teachers” of hate, we need only look around us. It’s the priest or imam who preaches a false, self-aggrandizing version of religious dogma. It’s the family who ensures it’s heirloom of hate against those colored differently than themselves is passed down to the next generation. It’s the bullying parent who transfers their own sexual hang-ups, disrespect of the opposite sex and no value of love onto their unwary young.

This day, let us start carefully teaching our little ones a new tune. The nation’s survival depends on it, yes, but the core of our souls require it.

AUTHORS NOTE: As for professional school teachers, please do not think this blog relates to you in any fashion. I have numerous friends and relatives who are teachers. I know from hearing them talk, they try hard every day to counteract the “anti-lessons” their students receive outside the classroom. God bless these teachers and all they do.