A Big Ask

Beloved,

What I’m about to ask is a very big ask.

You (probably) aren’t going to want to do it.

But I’m still going to ask.

Because it’s important.

Very important.

Stop hating.

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“No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.” —Nelson Mandela

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Let me be clear here: I’m not asking you to stop being angry.

You have the right to be angry.

Anger is natural.

And, as long as you are—as Aristotle counselled—angry at the right time, angry at the right person, angry in the right amount, and angry for the right reason, no problem.

Go for it.

Be angry.

Don’t attack or demeanate.

Don’t be hostile or cruel.

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“Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.” —Harry Emerson Fosdick

“The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.” —Eldridge Cleaver

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Anger is a state.
Hatred is a stance.

Anger gets expressed, and we move on.
Hatred gets stuck and reinforced.

Anger says: “Something is wrong.”
Hatred says: “Something is wrong and it’s irredeemable.”
Anger stems from an unwanted incident.
Hatred moves it from incident to identity.
Anger: “I don’t like that thing you do/did.”
Hatred: “You are bad.”

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Hatred gives a (false) sense of moral superiority.

And, hatred attracts like-minded people who form a community of hating the same thing and providing an echo chamber of binary thinking: “things would be better if it weren’t for them.”

Hatred dehumanizes the “other” into something evil.

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“Hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy.” —Liu Xiaobo

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” —James Baldwin

✧✧✧

Beloved.

You probably don’t want to give up on hatred.

It’s so easy to hate.

And, it feels so good.

(In the immediate short term, at least.)

I know it’s a big ask, but please resolve to end your hate.

It’s the only way we are going to make this world a better place.

rB