Hating One At A Time

I think people tend to have an incomplete understanding of diversity.  At the very least, they have an incomplete understanding of the effect of diversity on society.  As a present-day society, we tend to see diversity at the surface level.  That is, we acknowledge skin color, sexual orientation, gender, religious affiliation, and economic backgrounds as factors behind this term.  We see that these factors can impact society through different percentages and groups in general communities.  We normally see (or should) that diversity plays an important role in society and should exist.

But why is it important?  It’s great to strive for diversity but to what end does it make sense or make a difference?  There has to be some goal behind having a diverse community of individuals, but we often hastily come to the conclusion that diversity exists for the sake of diversity.  The fact is, if this was its only purpose, it would not be so imperative, so essential, to stress its existence and to strive for more.  I listened to a speaker last night as he spoke over this topic and I came to believe that his words described this other, often overlooked side of diversity.  He said that we tend to fail at asking the question, “Why do we strive to have diversity?”  He said the reason is to learn how to care for one another.  He said that we attempt to have diversity for the purpose of understanding and thereby creating an environment of different people who can act as a community.

He also made the point that the result of forming such a close community is that the problems and prejudice out of each minority group are shared and discussed.  The speaker pointed out that when we pay attention to the life perspective of our neighbor then we will want to help him, even stand by his side and fight with him for his rights.

Diversity is not this shallow topic of how many people of color or how many Muslims there are in a given community.  It is much deeper than that.  It brings into play an entire spectrum of social justice; a platform and a medium through which to enact change.  This is the more full view and representation of diversity in my mind.

With that being said, the speaker urged the crowd to, “Maybe start out a little ignorant.”  He wanted us to start off with a little prejudice in mind, but, through interaction in the diverse community, he wanted that prejudice to eventually slip away.

There is a kind of a life philosophy that I grew hearing about from my dad.  He would talk about hating one person at a time.  At first I was skeptical.  “What??”  How is it helping the situation to begin by hating groups of people, or even just one person?  I had failed, though, to see the true point behind his words.  In an ideal society, no one would hate and prejudice and intolerance would be dispelled, but we do not live in an ideal world.  My dad was being realistic by making the assumption that we all had prejudice within us, to some degree.  The philosophy of hating one person at a time merely limits our options of prejudice and hate.  If the rule is that we have to choose one person, then we had better choose wisely.  In order to choose wisely, we need to get know the people in question, put ourselves in their shoes, immerse ourselves in trying to understand their point of view because we need to know why we hate them more than the rest of the world.

The result of learning about the people you thought you could hate is that you find out, “I can’t hate them.  I have no grounds to be so against them.  In fact, I really need to show them love.  Show them that I care.”  It changes the way you act and suddenly you find that hate can be taken away with the absence of prejudice.

The point I would stress is that it is important to engage others and understand their views.  If we make an effort to become accepting and to foster a desire to become more connected to everyone, then the community environment becomes one based out of love, not hate, and affection, not frustration.  It ceases to be a tolerant society, full of suppressed anger, and becomes a united society unafraid to show outward care for one another.  I challenge anyone to try and hate only one person.  See what the outcome is for you.