From the Dawn Of Time: Love and Hate, The Rise of Hate Groups

"Where there is love, there is often also hate. They can exist side by side" - Cassandra Clare, City Of Bones.

No words truer have ever been written. Love and Hate are both long-standing ideals from the dawn of humanity. Wherever humans share love with others, hate has been spread by those lurking in the shadows. I know this sounds very philosophical and broad. But there's a point to why I'm talking about this.

If you all follow the news, Channel 7, you should have seen a newscast about the increase in hate and divide throughout the country. While hate groups are not as visible as they once were, there's no denying that the internet has provided people who are anguishing in hate to accept very dangerous paths to release their emotions. This country has probably seen more divide amongst its population than in recent decades. If anything, the coup at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, should say a lot about how divided this country is.

What I want to know is, why do people resort to hate and close off their minds? If you look at https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map, you can see how many hate groups were tracked in 2020. 838 hate groups! Some are even harder to track because they've moved all forms of their communication to the internet, making it difficult to know how many people are really in those groups. Why is it so difficult to have an open mind and share the love with those who are different from us? Why do humans resort to hate over love if something doesn't go their way?

I meant to post this back in February, but recent events have prompted me to postpone. In fact, I think the recent rise in Asian Hate Crimes is a good time to post this piece. Because the matter goes back to both the ideals of Love and Hate, and given recent events, the rise in Hate and prejudice against minority groups, specifically Asians, it‘s time to start having conversations about these things.

Hate is a lot easier to follow than love. Why is that? Why are we so easy to hate something we fear, rather than try to know and understand it? In my opinion, hate is a double edged sword, just like revenge. We try so hard to keep hating something or someone, but then we also start feeling that hate ourselves. Hate, being one of the most powerful emotions also tends to bring in a surge of negative emotions as well. If we really want to change the world we live in, and we want to end some of the oldest issues and problems that lies in this country, the very first thing we need to do is we need to understand what’s the causes of these issues. To understand the issues, we need to be open to the underlying feelings and values that have created these issues. The question we need to ask ourselves is, are we willing to be open to understanding other people’s feelings and underlying behavior, or are we so focused on being consumed by hatred and closing ourselves off from the opportunity to change hate into love?