How do we learn to hate? I
don’t mean difficult neighbors or jerky celebrities. How do we learn to hate
whole groups of people about whom we know little?
Hatred of the “other”, people
who are not like us, has been a constant in human societies since before the
Bible was written. Group hatred was the fundamental cause of the genocides
which characterized the 20th century, from beginning (mass killing
of Herero people in southwestern Africa by the German Army in 1904-07) to
end (Serbian mass
murder of Muslims in Bosnia 1992-5). In the US we are still dealing with
the mass hatreds against natives and blacks which have stained and bloodied our
history.
It’s trite, but true to say
that babies don’t hate. Children happily play with other children of different
races and religions until they are told that it’s wrong. To hate specific
groups of people, humans must be taught hatred.
In 21st-century
America, mass hatred focuses on three groups: blacks, gays, and Muslims. The
ancient hatred of Jews, which was still played out in social exclusion when I
was young, has nearly disappeared in the Western world. It took the murder of
more than one-third of the world’s Jews to make Christians realize the effects
of centuries of Jew-hatred propounded as official religious doctrine. Now the
fact that Bernie Sanders is Jewish hardly figures in discussions of his
campaign for President.
The hatred of black
descendants of African slaves brought to the New World has been much more
central to American history. Long after slavery ended, Americans
in every state organized to promote hatred of blacks. Recent research by
historian John Kneebone of Virginia Commonwealth University has widened our
understanding of the primary promoter of race hatred, the Ku Klux Klan. Between
the world wars, over 2000 local “klaverns” were organized in every state,
including one in Jacksonville. In Indiana in the 1920s, about one-third of white
native-born men were Klan members. The KKK was not run by ignorant hicks,
but included men
prominent in their communities and in politics. Klan preachings of race
hatred were reflected in movies, books, newspapers and educational curricula.
Klan membership died out by
1940, as the organizations disbanded. The influence of their messages
of hate lived long afterwards. Americans like me who grew up in the postwar
years, meaning the people who have held, now hold, and will continue to hold
power in this country, were raised with messages of anti-black hatred ringing
in our ears. Local laws, police practices, judicial decisions, and social
customs reflected the widespread acceptance of the traditions
of American racism well into the 1960s. Then it gradually became a social
error to openly espouse hatred for African Americans, for the first time in
American history. Lee Atwater, the long-time Republican strategist, revealed
how Republicans continued to use racism as a political
motivation in the more genteel post-civil rights era.
The Pandora’s box of racial
hatred was still open, when the election of Barack Obama suddenly lent partisan
cover to the recycling
of traditional racism.
When I was young, I didn’t
know that so many people hated homosexuals. Nobody talked about homosexuality,
except to voice popular taunts about effeminate men. Open public discussion
about gay sexuality, and a slightly disguised public hatred of gay people, has
become a feature of our public life since the 1970s.
But long before, a crusade to teach hatred
of homosexuals had been pursued by our government. Beginning in 1937, the FBI
organized a systematic campaign to identify gay people, compile “intelligence”
about their activities, broadcast this information across government, inject it
into the public domain, and get their targets fired from their jobs.
Gay marriage is hardly one of
the pressing issues facing our nation today. Yet the Republicans have made
their anti-gay position into one of the basic pillars
of Party ideology. You can find Republicans who urge the Party to tolerate
(that’s the best they offer) the acceptance of homosexuality, but you
can’t vote for them.
Today’s Republicans compete
with each other to see who can tap into and nurture a popular political fear of
radical Islam. They have no scruples about fomenting a more general hatred of
all Muslims as a tool to their own political power.
They have joined the
international chorus popularizing hate. The American wing
of PEGIDA, the Islamophobic fascist movement in Germany, tweeted happily
last year, “Donald Trump doubles down on his stand AGAINST TAKING IN MORE
SYRIAN MUSLIMS”. They loved Ted
Cruz (“Ted Cruz !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”) when he suggested killing the
Ayatollah if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon.
PEGIDA
Iceland loves Trump and PEGIDA
Ireland loves Cruz. The only Republicans who mention PEGIDA are media
stars, who wholeheartedly approve. They don’t recognize racism when it
comes right
of their mouths, as Gov. Paul LePage of Maine demonstrated the other day.
Hatred and anger are powerful
political emotions. Republican candidates believe they can employ the politics
of hate to win elections and then later control the hatred they encourage.
Meanwhile they teach their supporters that social hatred is good for America.
Those lessons take a long time to unlearn.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
Published in the Jacksonville
Journal-Courier, January 12, 2016
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