HATRED

Hatred-An American Pastime

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

“Memo to extreme partisans: If you can’t bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?”
― Walter Kirn

To my right leaning friends who read…who read my blog, don’t shoot the messenger because I’m choosing to quote Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is a necessary quote to help make my point. Please read farther than the quote.

“Not every election will be so filled with venom, misinformation, resentments, and outside interference as this one was. Solutions are going to matter again in politics.”

― Hillary Rodham Clinton, What Happened

I am sorry Mrs. Clinton, I disagree. It is easier to fill an election with venom, misinformation, and resentments than to provide solutions. Solutions require thought and tend to be expensive. Outside interference comes free of charge.

Venomous hatred is America’s new spectator sport with misinformation and resentments leading the cheers. No that is not true. Hatred directed at the “other” side has been around for…ever? Hatred is more of a participatory sport than spectator. Misinformation and resentments are dressed like the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders with their high kicks aimed at the heads of their opponents.

Hatred is not new; it just happens at light speed with social media with cowards hiding behind their computer screen.

I can’t help but think of abolitionist Charles Sumner being beaten by pro-slavery Preston Brooks in the hallowed halls of the Senate in 1856. Sumner made the mistake of calling out Brooks’ cousin over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Making it about family honor rather than a squabble over the expansion of slavery, Brooks confronted Sumner in the Senate chamber and almost beat him to death using a thick cane with a golden head.

Bleeding, Sumner managed to stagger up the aisle before collapsing and losing consciousness. Brooks continued to beat the motionless Sumner until his cane broke, at which point he continued to strike Sumner with the remaining piece. While many attempted to come to Sumner’s aid, they were held off at gunpoint.

Brooks was left with a broken cane and Southern sympathizers sent Brooks hundreds of new canes in endorsement of his assault. One was inscribed “Hit him again.” I would call this a breakdown in civil discourse. Sumner was never the same, both physically and emotionally and died of a heart attack in 1874.

I am not immune to feeling hatred. I did want Ted Cruz to throat punch The Donald after Trump insulted Cruz’s wife during a televised debate before the 2016 elections. Cruz being Cruz snuggled up close to The Orange Man instead.

Far beyond throat punching, if you paid attention in US History, one might remember the Hamilton-Burr duel in 1804 which saw Aaron Burr shooting Alexander Hamilton dead. We might end much useless debate today if we allowed our legislators to duel it out…or even “duke it out.” Judging from our love of firearms, many Americans would stand behind this.

Americans like to get a good hate on, we even drum up reasons to hate when none exists. A liberal publication, I know I’m taking a chance with my right leaning friends to quote two liberals, published the opinion of Tom Krattenmaker who described present day hatred as “so thick you can cut it with a knife and eat it with a fork. I’m afraid many of us are finding it a little too tasty.” He was discussing the recent breakdowns in civil discourse.

Hatred has been ingrained throughout the generations of American history and it is easy to point a finger and workup a good loathing for the other side. Hatred is in our genes, and we display our hatred in the strangest manners; Songs about small towns bring out the worst on both sides. Books might make our kids feel bad and should be kept out of their hands. Media darlings who dare to differ from our beliefs need to be boycotted.  Sports teams not singing our National Anthem need to move to China.

Strangest recently, a movie about doll characters dressed in pink…the movie portrayed Ken as not masculine enough according to certain pundits. Do you realize neither Barbi nor Ken dolls have genitalia? The stars? I saw a nude scene involving the female lead. Her female parts seem in good form…and then some.  Everyone is fair game, even people playing dolls.

Since becoming a nation, we have focused hatred on corrupt politicians for as long as corrupt politicians have been around…which is forever. Andrew Jackson ran as the “anti-corruption” candidate in 1824 (Take note Ted, he also fought a duel when someone insulted his wife). President Grant was up to his neck in graft and corruption…not him personally but people associated with him. The entire Election of 1876 was fraught with corruption. No, it ain’t new but closing our eyes to it seems the new norm.

Hatred isn’t limited to politics but could be a product of politics. Going back to colonial times we “hated” the “redskin”, drumming up support to take their land for better use. That was the basis for our hatred as the natives had the audacity to try and stand up to us.

“No dogs or Irishmen allowed” was our reaction to the Potato Famine. Newly freed slaves better not let the sundown catch you in this town. The Chinese, who were building the railroads for a “fish head and a bowl of rice a day,” had their pigtails cut off. Middle and Eastern immigrants were ridiculed during the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age. “Japs” “Krauts” and “Wops” were less than endearing terms used during the war years…and after…and before. Even the “Okies” were turned away at the California border as they migrated to get away from “The Dust Bowl.” We are good at using our hatred to eat our own.

A groundswell of anti-foreign hatred became evident with anti-Asian assaults provoked by blaming China for the Covid pandemic. It didn’t matter that many victims had lived their entire lives in the US.

There was also has the anti-Hispanic hatred element, seen in the call for the wall at our southern border and in the fear of an invasion of Latinos following the inauguration of President Joe Biden. That surge was realized but as soon as Title 42 was rescinded, illegal entries encountered at the border dropped by fifty to seventy percent.  Will that continue? Only time will tell.

The “crisis at the border” is not just a political concern but a humanitarian concern. Many on the right who believe in the “crisis at the border” also believe in “The Great Replacement Theory” and don’t seem to care about humanitarian concerns.

Lest I forget, there was a great deal of hatred on display during the January 6th protest, riot, insurrection…or the tour made by peace loving tourists.

It is not just the political right. No one my age should forget the liberal protests and riots of the late Sixties and early Seventies. War protests, civil rights protest, and the 1968 Democratic Convention all turned violent and were fueled by someone’s hatred.

Liberals expressed their hatred by taunting Viet Nam troops returning from the war and bombing or burning symbols of American Imperialism.

The ’67 Detroit riots lasted for five days and forty-three people were killed and over eleven hundred were injured. It also helped to trigger protests across the US that were a part of the “long, hot summer of 1967.”

The Holy Week Uprisings involving several US cities in April of 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Occupy Movement a decade ago, the Portland Riots after the death of George Floyd and others were liberal protests and riots and led to loss of life and damage in cities other than Portland.

Much hate on both sides and these are just a few examples.

A Newsweek poll conducted by Pure Spectrum found that 23 percent of survey respondents said it was “definitely” or “probably” justifiable to engage in violent protest. Among those polled, self-identified liberals were the most likely to say violent protest was ever justified at 28 percent, followed by conservatives at 25 percent. Ideological moderates were the least likely to say violence against the government was ever justifiable at 17 percent. Thankfully, 77 percent disagree.

Yes, Americans welcome a good hate. I am reminded of my college’s football cheer, “Kill em, kill em, we don’t care. We’ve got a graveyard over there” while pointing at the cemetery next to the stadium. Good, clean American fun.

Don Miller writes both fiction and non-fiction. His latest book, a historical novel of the Depression, Thunder Along the Copperhead, among others may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Shut up and Listen

/ cigarman501 / 5 Comments

It’s time for white folk to just shut up.  We are not listening.  We are shouting down the message.

Four years ago, Colin Kaepernick peacefully took a knee, and we (White Folk) shouted him down.  Athletes who joined him were called sons of bitches and threatened with firings.  A blonde-haired news pundit told an athlete to “shut up and dribble.” Conservative radio wrapped their racism and white nationalism with the US Flag and made it about disrespect instead of listening.  Award winners who dared to use their medium as a platform were told to just accept their award and shut up.  Be quiet so we don’t have to listen.

Why? It’s easier to be tone-deaf if you don’t have to listen.  You can be happy and secure with your head stuck where the sun never shines.

Four years later, what has changed?  I’m being kind, I could have asked twenty years later? Or thirty….  Nothing.  Systemic and institutional racism is still in place along with the double standard that is our justice system…and white people are still attempting to shout down those who are affected the most.

You dare to question this great country?  Just shut up and sit down, or move.  “Don’t like it here, go back to your shithole country.”  If we shout long enough maybe a bigger story will come along during the next news cycle to make people forget.  People do forget…white people.

White folk needs to shut up and listen.  Violent protest is not constructive…you are preaching to the choir if preaching to me.  It ain’t about me.  The white folks who have the most to lose are using it to drown out the message.

Our forefathers put the system into place, and we have guarded the fire of discrimination as if our lives depended upon it.  Not all, I believe the loudest shouters are in the minority and are the ones guarding and fanning the flame of racism and intolerance.

It is time for the silent majority to shut out the shouts of the minority haters and decide what we believe in.  We can’t afford to sit on a fence that may burn down from under us.  Shit or get off the pot because it is not the responsibility of people of color to destroy an oppressive system.  A system, we, as in whites, put into being…and have maintained since the end of the Civil War.  We must be the ones who dismantle discrimination and we can’t do that without listening.  We have to make dialog possible…by shutting up and listening.

“But things are better aren’t they?”  I don’t know.  I’m an old white guy.  Maybe you should go ask a friend of color…and listen quietly and intently.

I don’t believe white people get to make up the rules for acceptable protest.  We don’t get to share cute memes of MLK’s nonviolence without also sharing his quote “Riot is the language of the unheard.”  To do so is as hypocritical as “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal” when we have a system that openly disparages, marginalizes, and discriminates.  

Before we shout about violence, we need to accept our own.  My lifetime memories are full of scenes I’d like to forget.  As a student of history, I am aware our history books are full of glossed over white initiated violence in the name of expansion, manifest destiny, imperialism, and racism.  Glossed to the point it doesn’t exist.

King’s peaceful protests were met with burning buses, police dogs, and water hoses. King’s belief in non-violence got him killed.  Murdered by a white man with a gun, trying to maintain the flame of white supremacy.

“Oh, but that was long ago, people just need to get over it.”  People can begin to get over “it” when we admit and accept our sins and the sins of our forefathers.  I don’t believe we’ve done that.  I think we have done nothing but shout our excuses and what-about- isms.

The riots from the Nineties disappeared from our rose-colored sight and out of mind…and little was accomplished. The same with protests from more recent history.

I’m an old white guy who doesn’t understand how burning down your neighbor’s house because you are pissed is positive.  I won’t ever understand it.   My time and energy, and yours, would be better spent listening with an open mind and attempting to understand why there is so much anger and frustration.

If you find it easier to believe in leftwing plots, led by George Soros or Bill Gates, the Democratic Party, Antifa or the Illuminati…if you believe it is a rightwing plot, led by Donald Trump, the KKK, The Church of QAnon or other far-right groups, you are part of the problem because you would rather face made up problems than real ones.  The real one is too painful.

Are they organized, certainly but I don’t believe it is a Dark State plot.  Activism is not a dirty word and it is not anarchy.  Are there bad players at work  Sure, but you are allowing them to shout over the message.  You are not listening.

You are the ostrich with your head in the sand or worse if you don’t believe people of color have a reason to be mad.  You are shouting instead of listening because you don’t want to hear the truth.  You are afraid to listen to the pain, anger, and frustration of your neighbors because you might have to acknowledge we live in a racist system.  You are helping to fan the flame whether you want to or not.

In 1968, King died from an assassin’s bullet. The white shouts were almost the same as today.  The streets were burning and National Guard troops patrolled American cities. The cries were of anger, sadness, and frustration.  We didn’t listen.  We were too busy shouting about radical agitators as we watched the newsreels loop.  We wouldn’t shut up long enough to listen.  It was 1968 or is it right now?

In 1992, LA burned after four LA policemen were acquitted of the beating of Rodney King.  They were caught on camera for the nation to see.  The National Guard was on patrol again and there were the same shouts, the same excuses.  We didn’t listen.  It couldn’t be about a racist system.  It was 1992 or is it right now?

Do we repeat the same sins by drowning out people in pain or do we shut up and listen?  Are we willing to push for meaningful change or wait for the next tragedy to drown it out and return to the status quo?  Are we willing to change?

George Floyd’s death was awful, but it only cast a light on one symptom of the disease.  The disease isn’t terminal yet but it is moving swiftly in that direction.  Shut up and listen before our racism kills us.

***

Featured Image:  https://steemit.com/life/@domioanna/just-shut-up-and-listen

Don Miller’s author’s page https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR1IWVKrQFOwlgUOn0jXI0N85XUF4AFM-IgNPqW7PE1GGK23l7PJUvho9Fs

Liberal Christian is not an Oxymoron

/ cigarman501 / 8 Comments

I used to believe I was a moderate, a centrist (?)…hmmmm, maybe not…but a moderate independent none-the-less.  I knew I leaned left on certain issues, leaned left not the whole hog left.  I refuse to say social liberal, fiscal conservative because I can’t seem to keep my bank account balanced.  I am a social liberal.

I am being pushed farther and farther left though my beliefs haven’t changed much over the years.  As I have aged, if anything at all, I have found my way back to a path I had fallen off earlier.  The political spectrum has moved and taken religious beliefs with it…or is it the other way around?

Normally, a person’s religious beliefs are fine with me…provided no one loses a body part, gets disparaged or called an abomination while being publicly stoned…with a rock stoned.

I look at different “Christian” religions as “different flavors” of the same dessert.  Cherry cheesecake or strawberry cheesecake kinds of differences, both are tasty but different flavors of tasty.  Different religions?  Desserts from different ovens?  Yes, there are certain desserts I’m not going to eat and certain denominations I will not follow.

Two days ago, instead of cheesecake, I received a shaving cream pie to the face for expressing my belief that I am a left-leaning Christian.  The shaving cream is burning more than my eyes…a location considerably south of my eyes.

My anger has bothered me greatly, biblically (?), and for two days I have prayed for enlightenment and some anodyne to soothe the burning.  I’ve seen no light, and my metaphorical Preparation H seems to be acting like an Atomic Bomb.  Therefore, I will burden you, both of my faithful readers.

The comment I made was regarding what I felt was spreading hatred and division, what I deemed to be hatred and division.  I typed, ”I am a left-leaning Christian, this (the meme) is simply not true about liberals.”  I thought but didn’t type, “Shouldn’t religion be about love and inclusion?”  I should have known better.  The responses immediately went sideways and took on a political slant…no a political jump off a cliff.

Had I left off the words “left leaning” I would have gone unscathed, but that was my point.  I chose not to engage and barely survived being pummeled by “true believers’” welding social media generated “family Bibles.”  I turned off the notifications and whimpered off into the night.

Not what I was expecting but I should have.  I shared a post about a fence post that started an argument over cement.  They were funnin’ me…maybe.

Is it just about abortion?  I was told in a different post, civil, that I was copping out for not basing my entire belief structure and political affiliation on one issue.  Maybe I am skirting the issue…but it is my belief structure and not my issue.  A belief structure involving not only black and white but subtle shades of gray..

I believe I can hate abortion and still believe it is not my right to dictate what a woman or a couple decide for themselves.  If that is copping out I’m not the least bit sorry.  I must answer to my God.  For me, it goes deeper than one issue…albeit,  a big issue.

A really, big issue…but so is war and supporting the death merchants who benefit from it.  So is the gun lobby and our highest percentage rating of gun deaths in the first world.  So is ignoring science for corporate greed while fouling the air and water my grandchildren will have to breath.  Allowing children to go hungry and without medical care while pharmaceutical corporations continue to stuff their offshore bank accounts.

What about an equal education for all?  One that not only teaches people to think but prepares all to compete in a MODERN world.  How do we treat our LGBT friends and their rights?  What are their civil rights?  Why has there been a rise in open hostility some have toward people of color and other religions?

Just some of the issues I discussed with myself as I walked Saturday morning.  There are others, but I only walked for ninety minutes.  I also discussed the question, “Is the other political side any better?”  For now, I say yes but will continue to ask for guidance…and a prescription to calm my anger.

I do not believe Liberal Christian is an oxymoron.  I believe people who say so are using religion to further divide a divided humanity.  Why would we want to do that…or who would want US to do that?  Do not all our Christian religions follow a Middle Eastern man who was, by every modern definition of liberal, a liberal Jew.  I just started to feel better.

For lighter fare try Don Miller at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

For romantic adventure try Don Miller writing as Lena Christenson at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07B6BDD19

Image from TheChristianLeft.Org and http://whatwouldjackdo.net/blog.html

Words Matter…even my own

/ cigarman501 / 7 Comments

As soon as I hit send I knew I was getting into an argument but I didn’t care.  I should have cared!  I had pointed out to the anonymous poster hiding behind his keyboard that unless he was speaking about an electrical spark, “retard” was a very archaic term that we no longer used to describe people, especially in a school setting.

I also pointed out that the accepted term today was “special” or challenged.  I said this using as neutral emotions as my fingers could muster.  I must have failed.  It probably was the line “if all you can use are terms like ‘the retard’, you probably don’t have a good argument.”  The post he returned to me began in all caps, “ARE YOU SOME KIND OF F****** LIBERAL PC ASSHOLE?”

I thought, “Just disengage you can’t win this one,” but instead my fingers typed “If treating people the way I would like to be treated is liberal then I guess I will plead guilty.”  “Yeah, a f****** libtard teacher just like I thought” was his retort. The train rolled off of the tracks with mine.  “Yeah, a sub-human asshole just like I thought and glad you were never one of my students,” I replied.

As soon as I hit send I wanted to get the comment back.  I was ashamed for giving him a forum to vent his pent-up anger upon.  I could tell from some of his other posts he was angry before he switched on his computer.  Even though I had pointed out earlier in a different post that it seemed the accepted strategy of the times was “when all else fails” express your opinion by calling people names.   I just couldn’t let him get away with the “libtard teacher” comment.  Still, I felt I had just fallen into that “name calling” strategy myself.

It is odd the way my brain works… ‘strangely’ odd.   After my exchange I found myself brooding and following a mental pathway leading to my grandmother’s front porch.  Her hands were moving “ninety miles an hour” as she talked to my Uncle Claude.

Uncle Claude Griffin was one of my granddad’s brothers and a favorite of my Nannie’s.  Short and stocky with a huge birthmark on his cheek, he looked like one of Nannie’s brothers instead of one of my Paw Paw’s tall lanky siblings.  His hands were “flyin’“ as were Nannie’s because they were “signing”.  A few minutes later my mother came up and added another pair of hands “ah flyin.’“

Occasionally they would pause while Claude dug into a shirt pocket, pulling out a pen and a small spiral notebook to write down words and phrases Nannie and mother did not understand or had forgotten due to lack of use.  As his hands flew he made sounds that were unrecognizable as words.  They were what I now characterize as “expressive grunts” and were a form of communication in their own way.  As his excitement increased so did the grunts.  Many times they would simply throw their hands above their heads and laugh.

Claude was a deaf-mute and had been since his birth.  Being too young to ask all of the questions I have now, I wonder how his family had the resources to send him to a school for the deaf and blind and where he went…and how did my mother and grandmother become so adept at signing?

Claude was called a “dummy.”  I don’t know the person I first heard use that term but don’t think that it was a family member.  It wasn’t a derogatory term then, it was just the accepted term of the period…like saying that someone was retarded from an earlier period as opposed to special or challenged.

Special is found at both ends of the spectrum and Claude was certainly special and challenged but he was no dummy.  He could read and write in two languages, sign, and English.  I find it hard to be proficient in my languages, English and “Southern hick”.  My Spanish is also “muy malo.”

Claude worked in the cloth room at Springs Mills in one of the top non-supervisory positions for as long as I knew him and would seem to have been a contributing member of society.  Again he was no dummy.  Claude lived on his own in a small apartment in Fort Mill.  While he did not drive, he seemed to be quite mobile, appearing at my grandmother’s front porch as if out of thin air.  The older me can’t help but wonder if he was lonely in the silence of his small apartment.  I would guess not.

Many years later, after my career path had taken an unexpected detour, I found myself coaching track at Landrum High School.  One of the schools that we competed against was the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind, and “Land O’ Goshen!” I found them to be as normal (abnormal?) as any other group of teenagers.

While standing near a group of SCSDB track members cheering on a hearing impaired teammate, one youth of color exclaimed as the starter pistol was fired, “Man, look at that n$%%@r run!”  The youngster next to him said, “Now you know I’m blind and can’t see sh#t and neither can you, so what am I supposed to be looking at!”  Both of them just cackled over their joke along with everyone standing around them…including me.

I doff my hat to kids and adults who overcome their challenges, whether mental or physical.  I have found they desire as we all do, to be treated “just like everyone else” and to be treated fairly.  They don’t want to hide behind their challenges, don’t want a free pass, and like my SCSDB tracksters or my deaf-mute uncle, they can even joke about it.  They are pretty much like everyone else.  Those who rise to meet their challenges tend to be successful and those who don’t aren’t.

I wonder what challenges my poster has not met.  Does it make him feel better about himself using terms like “dummy” or “retard?”  I wonder if terms like “gimp,” “Mongolian idiot” or worse are included in his vocabulary.  I wonder if we are all losing our humanity?  Maybe if I had handled it better…no probably not.

From the book Pathways by Don Miller.  Pathways and others may be accessed at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

If interested in romantic adventure, Don Miller writing as Lena Christenson may be accessed at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07B6BDD19

Image from https://www.wayfair.com/decor-pillows/pdp/barn-owl-primitives-words-matter-textual-art-plaque-owlp1039.html

 

 

TOO LITTLE TIME TO HATE

/ cigarman501 / 2 Comments

It is easy to hate in today’s political climate it would seem. I see so much written or expressed in other ways that always seem to begin with “I hate….” You’re going to hate a lifelong friend because you have differing political views? With so much hatred being thrown around I began to think of my own hate. I don’t mean “strong dislike.” I mean “I wouldn’t pee on you if you were on fire or dying of thirst” hatred. Hatred is something we should be experience up close and personal, not “I hate all of the libtards” on my Facebook page or “I hate all Trump supporters” on my Twitter feed. Don’t you really have to know someone to hate them? As I evaluated my hatred I could only come up with three people worthy of it. Two former bosses and the little “shit” bully who tormented me throughout my primary and junior high school years. That should give you a clue as to my age, we don’t call them primary or junior high schools anymore.

All three were bullies in their own right and I found out the hard way “sometimes when you confront a bully” he doesn’t just walk away. I stood up to all three. Despite my “bowing up”, one led to my resignation, another “fired” me out right and the little “shit” beat my ass every time I stood up to him and for some reason I never got the message that “He’s beating your ass because he can and that is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.” He also stole my girlfriend in the seventh grade and had he wanted he could have kicked sand in my face. I remember daydreaming about ways to end my torment, pushing him down a long razor blade into a vat of alcohol was one memorable thought as was drowning him in a bucket of snot. A friend once told a story about three brothers. The two older brothers tormented their younger brother so badly that he waited until they slept one night and beat them senseless with a two liter Pepsi Cola bottle. Wish I had thought about that. Providence intervened when the little “shit” moved away after our eighth grade year.

I’m sixty-six and with age comes wisdom…sometimes…well, a blind hog sometimes finds an acorn. It dawned on me that despite my hatred, the focus of my hatred didn’t even know I am still alive and furthermore could care less. At sixty-six, the sands in my hour glass are running out and I have decided, if not able to forget, I can forgive and move on. Funny odd, not ha ha funny, but every time I was egregiously wounded by one of these bullies, something good came out of it. In some ways, they are responsible for the good life that I enjoy today. Moving on was always a better move it just took a little age to realize it.

So, I have decided to eliminate the word hatred from my vocabulary and my mind. I may still strongly dislike, especially in this political landscape, but for now at least, Mikey, Sammy and Willy…I forgive you and wish I could give you what you so justly deserve, which is…NOT ANOTHER THOUGHT.