How We Hate

Sermon by Stephen D. Edington, April 17, 1994

Reading: - from A Holy Curiosity by Rev. Bruce Marshall

We learn that evil festers when we cut ourselves off from each other. In the spaces we create between people grows wariness, suspicion, and perhaps hate. When neighbors keep apart from each other, when people of different religions shut themselves in their own communities, when races refuse to interact, when nations discourage contact with other nations: then we lose awareness of our common humanity, and forget that our fates are interconnected. We harden ourselves to each other and can ignore the abuse of another ...

Whenever we are being prepared to do evil to others we hear that they are different from us. They do not value life as we do. Or they won't work like we do. Or they don't believe in God as we do. Or their God is not the same as ours ... When we claim such differences, we view other people as less valuable. It doesn't matter, then, if they are mistreated, persecuted, tortured, or removed. For they are not as fully human as we.......

For several summers the Unitarians of Great Britain have brought children from the war torn city of Belfast, Northern Ireland, to the English countryside. These Catholic and Protestant children in Northern Ireland see each other only as enemies. But for a few weeks during the summer, they live and play together and come to know each other as human beings.

I visited with a couple that served as houseparents one year. They told me of how when the children first arrived, they were tense. At night they roamed the halls, waiting for trouble outside to begin. But this was the English counryside--they were surrounded by farmers and sheep. No trouble came. Only as their time in England was ending did they begin to trust the quiet.

During the first days these children divided into Catholics and Protestants as was their custom. The housemother overheard a discussion among several Protestant boys about body parts. When they came to the sexual organs, one said, "Oh, Catholics don't have those." The group apparently accepted that as a truth, and the conversation moved on.

As their time together continued the Catholic and Protestant groups broke up, and the children began to be together as children. I would guess that they discovered that both Catholics and Protestants "have those." But that snippet of conversation conveyed a chilling idea--a child's interpretation of what he had been told: that those on the other side are different. So different as to be of another species. So different as to not be human.

SERMON

Last week as I went through my customary ritual of sermon preparation by reading over whatever material I can unearth on my upcoming topic, I got an editorial comment in one of the articles I was researching that its authors certainly never planned on being made. It was in an issue of US News and World Report from a couple of years ago on the rise in bigotry on our nation's college campuses. The article itself was unsettling enough; and among the pictures that were included with it was a photograph of an Afro-American student speaking--as the caption stated--at a campus rally on racism. Across the student's forehead (in the picture I mean, not on the actual student) someone had written in very neat letters with a ballpoint pen the word "nigger". It was that little piece of graffiti that ended up leaving a stronger impression on me than the article itself, as well written and informative as it was. My first response was to flinch back and then shake my head in disgust; and after that I just stood there thinking. What was in the mind and heart of the person who wrote this? What did he or she see in this photograph that prompted this kind of racist defacing? What kind of statement was the person involved attempting to make by this little anonymous bit of vandalism? Then I couldn't avoid recognizing the painful irony that an article written to alert its readers to the presence of hatred in our society became--in that one magazine anyway--a vehicle for expressing such hatred instead.

Do I make too big a thing of this? Possibly. There was part of me that just wanted to shrug the whole thing off as the work of some small minded, mean-spirited cowardly individual showing off his or her ignorance--and let it go at that. I have a hunch that that's the way most of us here would respond. But then I thought, suppose instead of me encountering this defaced picture as a middle-aged white male who is capable of intellectualizing about it by raising the kinds of questions I just did--what if instead I were an Afro-American high school or college student going down to the library to do some research for a paper on racial issues in America and found this staring back at me? Then what would the picture say to me? I'm sure I wouldn't be near as dispassionate about it. I'd be angry; I'd be hurt; I'd probably wonder what the point would be in even pursuing the subject if this is what I get for my efforts.

Some sermons I do because I enjoy pulling of my thoughts and feelings on a given topic together, and because I want to pass on to you certain ideas, thoughts, stories, and experiences that have blessed and enriched my life in the hope that maybe they'll do the same for you. Some deal with issues I have strong feelings about and I want to make those feelings known and encourage you to explore own feelings as well. But then there are some I take on that are about subjects I actually do not want to face, about things that have a disturbing and disquieting effect on me; and, were I to follow my natural inclinations, subjects I would avoid. A topic like "hate", for example. What up-beat, positive minded, life affirming religious liberal wants to hear about hate and hatred? Well, not me. In fact, I have to confess the first thing I wanted to do when I saw that the graffitied picture was to quickly turn the page as if I hadn't seen it at all. But at the same time we up-beat, positive minded, life affirming religious liberals also pride ourselves on seeing and dealing with the world as it is without the rose-colored glasses or pie-in-the-sky notions of what will be. If this is indeed one of the things we pride ourselves on, then we do well to call ourselves on it from time to time.

Hatred is a demon that will not die. It can be periodically subdued, curbed, and tamped down but, apparently, never obliterated. I think of the many good fights that went into the civil rights and black empowerment movements of the 60's and 70's, and I think of the now obviously naive belief on the part of many of us then that increased education and enlightenment on the part of society at large would in time lead to the gradual diminishment of prejudice and bigotry. There was a day when I would have hoped it would not be necessary, by the time the year1990 rolled around, for Congress to pass and for then President Bush to sign into law something called the Hate Crimes Statistics Act requiring that the federal government keep data on acts of violence motivated by prejudice against racial, religious or ethnic groups or gays and lesbians. In that same year--1990--New York City reported an 80% increase in hate crimes since 1986, with the great majority of them being perpetrated by young people under 19. In that same year the Anti-Defamation League noted the highest number of anti-Semetic acts that had been counted since they had been monitoring them, again most of them on the part of young people in their late teens. In 1993 the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force says attacks on homosexuals increased by 172% over the past five years. Klanwatch, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama reports that 1992 was the "deadliest and most violent year" for bias related events in more than 10 years. Thirty one of these events were murders.

For all of the positive benefits and positive possibilities of community access cable television, it has also provided an outlet for hate programs as demonstrated in a recent Time magazine article called "All You Need Is Hate." These are shows like "Race and Reason" anchored by the head of the White Aryian Resistance Movement or one called "Airlink" that promotes the neo-Nazi line. Granted these, and others like them, are fringe groups with few actual members, but the fact that they can get on television gives them an impact and, in the eyes of many, a kind of legitimacy that they really don't have. In commenting on the hate crime increase and the preponderance of young people involved the US News article had this to say: "What explains this rise in youthful bigotry? Analysts point to a variety of factors, among them: Racially related economic competition for both job opportunities and college aid (and) a decline in parental responsibility for children's actions ... Moreover, they say, today's young people don't have any personal knowledge of past struggles for justice and equality. 'They don't know about gas chambers and sit-ins,' says Allan Ostar, president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. On top of all that, bigoted acts today, unlike in earlier historical periods, are a risk taking challenge to an official culture of tolerance. 'Hatred is hip,' says Jeffrey Ross, the ADL's director of campus affairs."

Most of these pieces would try to interject some hopeful note at some point about various programs being launched or carried out in communities, high schools, and colleges aimed at creating a better understanding and appreciation of racial, religious, and ethnic diversity. These are efforts I would certainly applaud. Still I found myself saying to myself, "I thought we did all this already." That was quickly followed by the rejoinder of "How naive can you get?" Whatever gains, however great or small they may have been, that one generation makes in dealing with bigotry and hatred are hardly binding or lasting for all time. To believe that they are is a little like thinking that one good meal will keep you full all week. Hatred doesn't just die on the vine however much we may wish that to be so. We need to be repeatedly calling ourselves to an awareness of what hatred is, how it works, how it can sneak up on us at times, and how we confront it both in ourselves and in the larger world in which we live and move. Rather than continue with a litany, then, of how terrible hatred is--since there is probably no disagreement with me on that point--I want to move into this calling or re-calling to awareness. How is it that we human beings come to hate anyway? Is there something inevitable about it? Is it unavoidable?And is it always bad? Can there be such a thing a "good" hate?

To begin with the obvious, hatred comes from within us, each of us. It is strictly a human phenomenon. It has not been imposed upon us by some extraterrestrial force or power. A premise I'd like you to consider today is that hatred occurs, or is generated, when certain very legitimate human needs, drives, and emotions take a twisted turn. The needs I have in mind are the need for personal and corporate identity; the need for a sense of safety and security in life; the need for a sense of place in the world--geographic, psychological, and spiritual; and the need for a sense of self-worth. Whenever any of these needs are threatened, or more to the point, whenever a perceived threat to these needs comes about, then the emotions--especially fear--that are generated in the wake of that threat or perceived threat can very quickly give way to feelings of hatred.

Lets start with identity. We all need some sense of who we are; and we define ourselves in many ways--some more consciously than others. We both define ourselves, and we are defined by such things as sex or gender, by race, by sexual orientation, by nationality, by religion, by ethnic origin, by family of origin and the like. If we come to believe, or can be made to believe, that our identity is being threatened or demeaned or diminished just by the presence of those who are defined or who define themselves in some other way than we do, we are set up to hate. If we can be made to believe that our own sense of self worth is being diminished or taken away because of those who are in some way defined differently, we are set up to hate. I really believe that the fear and hatred the gets directed towards gay and lesbian persons derives from this; from the idea that in order for one's heterosexual identity to be "right" or valid, a homosexual orientation or identity has to be "wrong" or invalid or immoral. I believe that the various religious teachings about the immorality of homosexuality are actually rooted in a much deeper human fear of difference in an area that goes a long way in defining a person's identity, namely the area of human sexuality.

In another area, and to go back a few years, the violence and hatred that Martin Luther King and his followers encountered in the early days of the civil rights movement was not, I am convinced, over his rather modest goals concerning integration, voting rights, equal access and the like. It came from some much more deeply rooted fears by many whites that their identity and self-worth were being threatened. I grew up in the South in the 1950s and saw some of this first hand. There was a sentiment among whites that went, no matter how bad I've got it and not matter how difficult my life may be, by golly at least I'm not black. Someone needed to be down a rung on the worthiness ladder so others "above" them could feel good about themselves. This meant seeing life as a zero sum game, and one's need to have a place in life, as a zero sum game; i.e. if you enhance somebody else's stature and worth, you take away something of mine. There is something that is simultaneously sad and scary about that, and playing on the fears that one's identity and self worth are being threatened by the very presence of others is the time honored tactic of demagogues.

What I'm trying to say here is that fear, suspicion, and hatred occur when our legitimate needs for identity and sense of place keep us from seeing the humanity of others who are also struggling for their identity and their sense of place. We need to create a space for ourselves to be sure, while not letting that space become a gulf that cuts us off from the humanity of others. Recall Bruce Marshall's words again, "In the spaces we create between people grows wariness, suspicion, and perhaps hate. When neighbors keep apart from each other, when people of different religions shut themselves in their own communities, when races refuse to interact, when nations discourage contact with other nations; then we lose awareness of our common humanity, and we forget that our fates are interconnected ... whenever we are being prepared to do evil to others we hear that they are different from us. They don't value life as we do. Or they won't work like we do. Or they don't believe in God as we do. Or their God is not the same as ours ... When we claim such differences, we view other people as less valuable. It doesn't matter then, if they are mistreated ... for they are not as fully human as we."

Moving to a somewhat different angle now, I said also that a sense of safety and security is a basic human need; physical safety, emotional safety; a sense of security about the present in which we live and the future that is before us. When that safety or security is invaded or threatened we feel fear, anger, and sometimes hatred. There are some kinds of fear and anger, as I've said in previous sermons, that are reality based and quite rational. However much fear and anger can warp our perspective and cut us off from life at times, fear also warns us about real dangers, and anger provides us a way of legitimately responding to or dealing with very real violations of ourselves. I spoke to this to some extent in the sermon I did on anger about six weeks ago. If fear and anger have their legitimate side, then what about hatred since it is so closely linked with these two human emotions? Is there such a thing a "good hate", or is that term always and ever an oxymoron?

I've think lived something of a charmed life in that I've never been the victim of a home robbery or vandalism or a mugging or the like. But in talking with people who have, the thing that they invariably all say is that well beyond the loss of property or money, or the damage that was done to some of their possessions, is a deeper sense of personal violation; and that is where the anger really comes from. A not uncommon utterance is, "I know I shouldn't say this, but I really hate the person who did this to me and I'd like to break his neck" (or whatever other body part that comes to mind). These are people of good will who would most likely would agree with what I've had to say about hatred this morning, and who would also share my concern about the destructive presence of hatred in our society. Well, I've never said to such a person, "Hey, you shouldn't feel that way" because I don't feel I have a right to tell a person in that situation what they should or should not feel. Neither would I argue with the point that the anger and, yes, the hatred that they are feeling may in fact be a way of expressing a positive regard for themselves; a way of saying "I do not deserve to be treated this way." Now, if the person is expressing an intent to go out and actually extract the kind of retribution they say they want, that is when I strongly urge them to put on the brakes. But I've come to believe that there is such a thing a "therapeutic hatred"--a process that one may need to work through in order to eventually come to terms with, or make peace with, that sense of personal violation.

The same process holds, on an even deeper level, for people who are attempting to come to terms with childhood (and adulthood too, for that matter) abuse--sexual or otherwise. I can understand how part of the healing process for such a person involves being able to say to the perpetrator--either directly, or by some surrogate means in a therapeutic setting--I really hate you for what you did to me and for the way you've scarred my life in a manner I did not and do not deserve at all. Acknowledging, and giving voice to such feelings of hatred, in such a situation as this, can be a means of getting past the scars themselves.

I hope the distinction is clear here. Most hatred is destructive, irrational, and grows out of fear and ignorance about those who differ, and from an unwillingness or inability to recognize and validate the essential humanity of those who are different. There are also certain circumstances, like the ones to which I've just alluded, where acknowledging and owning hatred can be a part of a larger healing process where eventually the hatred can be released and one's wholeness can be recovered.

Its time to pull this together and bring it to a close. I do not believe that our society is completely defined or characterized by bigotry and hatred, but it continues to be infected by them. And now another generation seems to have caught the infection. I know that there are any number of reasons that can be cited for that and some of them are more understandable than others. I know that I cannot go out and singlehandedly get rid of hatred, and neither can any of you. But I also know that shaking my head and turning the page is not a sufficient response to expressions of hate. I can begin such a response by putting before myself and before you a couple of questions that I feel we must answer as best we can, given the real world in which we must live. The questions are: How, in the face of hatred do we be a community of hope and healing? and, What do we teach and what do we give our children? The questions are as much for you as they are for me, and I invite your serious exploration of them. What are the ways in which we can be a voice for those who are victims, or targets, of hatred? How do we be a reconciling community for such persons within our walls, and be an advocate for justice on behalf of those beyond our walls? I believe we have the potential for doing both, even as we act out--or live out-- that potential right now.

And what do we teach and give our children? Bruce Marshall's story about the Protestant and Catholic children from Belfast who were spending a summer in the British countryside certainly had its amusing side, as he intended it to. But then he adds this sobering rejoinder: "That snippet of conversation conveyed a chilling idea--a child's interpretation of what he had been told; that those on the other side are different. So different as to be of another species. So different as to not be human."

I feel quite confident in saying that none of us would teach our children--both our biological offspring and those we encounter in this religious community--that there are people so different from them that they are of a species other than human. I'm hardly concerned about that. What I am concerned about, and I'll speak very personally here, is the kind of setting in which we raise them and what we allow that setting to tell them about the larger world in which they will eventually live. I am pleased with the environment in which we raise our son--safe neighborhood, good friends, good opportunities for recreation, education, and the like. There is certainly none of that I'd ever want to take away from him. But I don't think I'm the only parent who struggles with this issue of wanting to raise children in a safe and protective environment while at the same time not wanting that environment to be so safe and so protective that it becomes the only way of life they know; or, more to the point, the only way of living and being that is seen as having worth or value. For if that is the message that comes across, however unintentionally or inadvertently, then the persons who live outside of that environment could indeed come to be seen as another species. We are most prone to fear those about whom we know the least, and we are most prone to hate that which we fear.

But for all their tragic reality, fear and hatred do not have to be the last word. We owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to the human community to which we aspire to be continually finding ways of reaching across human boundaries, across human identities, across all that separates and divides to the common ground we all share on this earth. A naive aspiration maybe, but given the alternative, one worthy of pursuing.


Copyright © 1994 by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua NH. All rights reserved.