Dealing with hate

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This is why segregation is such a problem. When you go to school with people of different ethnicities, religions and (eventually) sexualities from a young age, you make friends among them. It's difficult to hate the groups represented by your friends. It's one more reason I think Catholic schools in Ontario are such a monumentally bad idea.
 
I think one of the best things about Little M's schooling was that our area is fairly diverse so he had a good mix of friends and classmates. Being mixed race/culture himself, I think he tends to be fairly open minded to start with about other races and cultures but being in a diverse school just encouraged it further. One of his best friends throughout school (grade 1 to 12) was mixed South Asian and Dutch and a practicing (if very liberal) Muslim. He had, perhaps inevitably, a lot of Chinese friends, too. His roomies this year, both friends he made in first year, are Chinese and Korean. The broader your mix at a young age, the more likely it is you'll grow up used to being in a diverse world. Or at least that's what I've seen.
 
I was struck by the courage that Mr Davis had in interacting with a member of KKK. He used love which is remarkable. I'd like to think I could do that. I'm not sure i could. I think of having coffee with someone like the POTUS........ it would be hard. That being said. I've learned more from people on that side of the spectrum than from people who think as I do.
 
Northwind said:
I was struck by the courage that Mr Davis had in interacting with a member of KKK. He used love which is remarkable. I'd like to think I could do that. I'm not sure i could. I think of having coffee with someone like the POTUS........ it would be hard. That being said. I've learned more from people on that side of the spectrum than from people who think as I do.
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What have they taught you?
 
This is where love the sinner hate the sun comes in - not as it has been used to demean the lgbtq community - but when people are aligned with groups with hateful motives, those lines get blurred. The problem is now that there are groups of people now operating on what they have deemed as a completely different set of facts and so it is impossible come to an understanding. If someone wanted to change it would be easy to love them, and easier to begin to forgive. When they don't, it's harder. Especially for those who are minorities who feel realistically threatened by their hateful worldview. I don't have to like them, and I think we have a duty to speak out against groups like neo-nazis, while still trying to understand how they got that way, and to know they are flawed humans too - and to offer better choices. But we don't have to tolerate their views to love them. I don't think it does any good to anyone to be tolerant of those views. Not even them.
 
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chansen said:
This is why segregation is such a problem. When you go to school with people of different ethnicities, religions and (eventually) sexualities from a young age, you make friends among them. It's difficult to hate the groups represented by your friends. It's one more reason I think Catholic schools in Ontario are such a monumentally bad idea.
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Course, there are people of different ethnicities, religions and (eventually) sexualities within Ontario's Catholic school system.
 
But they are predominantly Catholic. So the students are in a Catholic bubble.
 
Excellent thread, Northwind!.......

Chansen is right in my view, group hatred evolves through segregation. That's why I have a problem with church based schools - it reinforces 'us" and "them". Very young children can show us adults how to appreciate the humanity of the other, regardless of ethnicity, religion, politics, etc. That is a wonderful gift they have for we adults - so why do we bugger it up by segregating them and teaching them about difference???

A true story from my life....
In my twenties I shared an apartment with a girl from Northern Ireland. We often attended the Irish club here in Sydney. She fell in love with a guy from Northern Ireland. Trouble was he was a Catholic and she was Protestant - and, at that time, the two religious groups were involved in "The Troubles".
She justified her love for a Catholic by saying, "Jerry is not like the Catholics back home, he's really nice." I asked her how many Catholics she knew socially when she lived in Ireland? "None, we go to different schools, we live in different neighbourhoods and, from an early age we're told how our relatives were killed by the IRA".

But, what really opened my eyes, was that privately Jerry told me that "Eileen's not like the Protestant girls back home."

Since then, I've learnt that sharing our humanity with the other, is necessary to end group hatred. Instead of just responding to what's said, spend some time trying to understand a person's background and how it formed their thinking. It takes time and effort, but it's a good beginning.

If segregation wasn't possible, then group hatred would dissipate. Conversely, by maintaining segregation, hate of the other is encouraged and fuelled.
 
The Protestant school I went to is probably the one where we most learned of each other's backgrounds. Not everyone there was Christian either.
 
Kimmio said:
What have they taught you?
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Mostly to think outside my bubble and to see that each view has good and bad.

Kimmio said:
The problem is now that there are groups of people now operating on what they have deemed as a completely different set of facts and so it is impossible come to an understanding. If someone wanted to change it would be easy to love them, and easier to begin to forgive. When they don't, it's harder. Especially for those who are minorities who feel realistically threatened by their hateful worldview.
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Did you read the article or listen to the piece? Seems to me, the white man had a worldview and philosophy that would be threatening (to say the least) to the black man. And yet, they came to love and respect each other.

Kimmio said:
while still trying to understand how they got that way, and to know they are flawed humans too - and to offer better choices.
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Why do we need to understand how they got that way? Why is it up to us to try to change them? That's a colonial view.

Kimmio said:
But we don't have to tolerate their views to love them. I don't think it does any good to anyone to be tolerant of those views. Not even them.
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Did Mr Davis tolerate the other man's views?
 
PilgrimsProgress said:
Excellent thread, Northwind!.......

Chansen is right in my view, group hatred evolves through segregation. That's why I have a problem with church based schools - it reinforces 'us" and "them". Very young children can show us adults how to appreciate the humanity of the other, regardless of ethnicity, religion, politics, etc. That is a wonderful gift they have for we adults - so why do we bugger it up by segregating them and teaching them about difference???

A true story from my life....
In my twenties I shared an apartment with a girl from Northern Ireland. We often attended the Irish club here in Sydney. She fell in love with a guy from Northern Ireland. Trouble was he was a Catholic and she was Protestant - and, at that time, the two religious groups were involved in "The Troubles".
She justified her love for a Catholic by saying, "Jerry is not like the Catholics back home, he's really nice." I asked her how many Catholics she knew socially when she lived in Ireland? "None, we go to different schools, we live in different neighbourhoods and, from an early age we're told how our relatives were killed by the IRA".

But, what really opened my eyes, was that privately Jerry told me that "Eileen's not like the Protestant girls back home."

Since then, I've learnt that sharing our humanity with the other, is necessary to end group hatred. Instead of just responding to what's said, spend some time trying to understand a person's background and how it formed their thinking. It takes time and effort, but it's a good beginning.

If segregation wasn't possible, then group hatred would dissipate. Conversely, by maintaining segregation, hate of the other is encouraged and fuelled.
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But- have those two really overcome their prejudice? Saying this person is not like the others of tht group seems to still justify judging the rest of that group. The step to be taken is to to conclude that because this one person isn’t like my judgement about the group, I identify my judgement as prejudice. Oddly enough, that step is not always following and so we have neo nazi groups who have one odd turk in their group while they are going to beat up other dark coloured people.
 
I can relate to that story @PilgrimsProgress. My grandmother was from Dublin and protestant. If my mother had married a Catholic man, my grandmother would have disowned her. My cousin, whose parents had come from "the auld country" married a divorced - Italian - Catholic man. :eek: It caused quite a stir among those in the family who had been born in Ireland. They are still married almost 40 years later, and both sides of the family chilled. Having "one of them" in the family can do a lot to promote growth. :)

My grandmother mellowed to the point where I would not have been disowned had I married a Catholic person.
 
Northwind said:
Frankly, this is a very condescending way to respond to others. I don't for a second believe that's what happened between these two men. We can learn a lot from these two and others like them.
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It's not something I say - to be honest it is something I feel. Because I don't hate anybody but I do hate some peoples' actions.
 
I really don't get how trying to understand how the elements and events in a persons life that shaped who they are (how did a neo-nazi become such) is a 'colonial' response. It's an empathic response if anything - but without being tolerant of the behaviour itself.
 
Northwind said:
Mostly to think outside my bubble and to see that each view has good and bad.



Did you read the article or listen to the piece? Seems to me, the white man had a worldview and philosophy that would be threatening (to say the least) to the black man. And yet, they came to love and respect each other.



Why do we need to understand how they got that way? Why is it up to us to try to change them? That's a colonial view.



Did Mr Davis tolerate the other man's views?
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The 'both sides' have good and bad views???? (some very fine people on both sides was what Trump said) Enlighten me.
 
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Yes indeed. Really @Kimmio you are fighting hate with hate.

We've gone round and round before. I'm not doing that here. You know my views on black and white thinking.

I suggest you at least read the article i posted.
 
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