The Hateful Bigot in All of Us

"Let no man pull you low enough to hate him." - Martin Luther King Jr.

I didn't have a topic in mind when I started researching for this week's essay, but as I was scrolling this one hit me like a bag of bricks. "Let no man pull you low enough to have him." Ouch. That stung. Let's take a moment to break this down before going into practical applications. I fail to frequently to set the groundwork with definitions and I want to make sure those are established here.

The key word here is hate and there's a lot of different ways people use this word so we need to make sure we are seeing clearly on this. A quick google search of the word generates this definition: "feel intense or passionate dislike for (someone)." Synonyms include loathe, detest, and abhor. Some of us see the word "hate" as such a strong word that it's almost level with a round of cussing. To hate someone is to wish they didn't exist, to wish God didn't create them. Do you hate someone that much? Indeed hate is a strong word, and I agree with this interpretation. 

However, most of us, especially in today's society use the hate word with little thought. As in: "I hate pop quizzes," or even "I hate Mr. Jones..." We probably don't mean that we really wish Mr. Jones didn't exist (pop quizzes maybe...) but we just vehemently dislike him as the aforementioned definition implies. 

So which was Dr. King driving at? Well given the hateful bigotry that he was no doubt addressing at this time, we can assume he was tackling, at least largely the first kind of hatred. But that's not so much what I want to address. I don't think any of us are dealing with hatred on that level in our lives. But what I'm talking about is just the disliking of people in general - something we struggle with in general. Because we all have that coworker or the one classmate who makes us want to tear our hair out and sometimes hate is the only appropriate way we can find to express that. So in the question of what do I mean by hate, I mean both, but I'm particularly driving at is the second definition - something that plagues almost all of our lives.

Definition two hate (or one by the way), like all other great sins, finds its roots in pride. We become little kids on a playground. "Bobby pulled my hair! I hate him!" It arises from feeling that we are better than the people we are subjected to working and dealing with, and shouldn't be forced to put up with their shenanigans, while entirely suppressing our own shortcomings. It's hypocritical and it's prideful. None of us are perfect, yet we allow ourselves to despise others and condemn them for faults that we possess. Why? Because we are better than that. 

Confused? Let me give a short example. At recess (yeah we get recess, and if you think that's stupid - do a little research. Middle school kids can not only benefit from recess but should be entitled to it and I speak to that as a nerdy kid who has benefited immensely from 20 minutes of open gym every day. Anyway... I digress) I play basketball with the same 5 boys every day. We mix up the teams and have this 3 v. 3s. It's a couple of nicer eighth-grade boys and some sixth graders and it's tons of fun. But there's this one boy, Peter. He has decent handling skills and is nice enough, but he can't shoot for his life and he thinks he can. He pops up for three from half court when we've got both of us down on the block ready for an easy score. Up by ten with three minutes to go. No lead is safe because he's never satisfied and insists on being a one-man show. Even when I have the ball, he has no basketball IQ, and instead of cutting backdoor into the middle which is wide open while I'm being doubled, he sits on the perimeter, waiting for another chance to blow the shot. Understand that I respect the poor boy, and he's really a nice kid, but sometimes in the heat of the moment, hate isn't out of the question. I would never say that or even think that, but based on the dictionary definition, that's really what's going on. 

Where is that hate coming from? Selfishness. My team could be winning because I'm all that, but now we're stinking it up because Peter can't do the smart thing, even though we've explained it seventy-four times. Every day we get embarrassed even though we're the better team. So stupid. How could he? I'm better than that, why isn't he? That's what hatred is. 

The thing is, we want to blame, and we are quick to blame the other person. If you've followed this year's NFL playoffs you may want to blame the ref or the kicker at times for your team losing. Because people do dumb things that are disadvantages to our tiny little view on the world, we have a right to get bent out of shape about things, a right to hate. Dr. King's point is that hatred is a personal thing that we are personally responsible for. We allow hatred to creep into our lives, and unchecked, it will destroy us. 

Hate tears people apart and it divides entire societies. Understand that I don't support many things. I will never support gay and lesbian marriage, I will never support the whole movement with sexuality and apparently, some hundred different genders existing - but that doesn't mean I hate those people. We are so inclined to look at our differences and look at people who are being just a pain to us and hate and dislike when we should be focussing on loving and respecting people. Not always agreeing and sometimes voicing our disagreement, but respecting and loving and building a society where we can have tough conversations in a loving manner. Hate shouldn't be anywhere in the picture. 

It's super easy to hear this and think: "Yeah, Braxton, give it to those hateful bigots out there," but I'm not trying to do that at all. I'm just looking at my life and thinking of the most frustrating people and I'm thinking I let them pull me into hate when I should have stood stronger than that and been loving. The question today is "who are you hating?" Because I know the answer isn't "nobody." The question then becomes, who? And how are you going to show love to those people? Hate is not a gratifying trap, and you have control over it. So use your power. Don't get sucked in.