"You've got to be taught to hate"

[Cyrano]

Right now, our country, and many people in the world, are seething with hatred of "the other."

Hatred doesn't just happen. No one is born with it. You've got to be taught to hate ... whoever.

Rogers and Hammerstein wrote a brilliant song about hate in their play/film "South Pacific," more 60 years ago.

I don't know if anyone has ever stated the nature of hatred better.

Understand this, if nothing else. Hatred is a disease of the mind.

Here's a link to the clip from the film:

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=6gBGXOvzDYO2sAXsg7TQAg&q=south+pacific+you%27ve+got+to+be+carefully+taught&oq=south+pacific+you&gs_l=psy-ab.1.1.0l8.3717.10239..15775...0.0..0.111.1481.14j3......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i131.sjfSbV9EufY

[Wellstone ruled]

1. So true,and the only true

barrier to this is a top notch education .

[mr_lebowski]

2. Great one!

Here's a direct link ...

[Big Blue Marble]

3. Thanks for posting.

I have though of this song often in the last two years.

[Claritie Pixie]

4. Absolutely. Small children don't hate. It's parents and others in their life who shape them.

[qazplm135]

5. I don't think that's true

People definitely are taught to hate in the specific, but I certainly believe that hatred is a fundamental human emotion that we all have the ability to express just like love, envy, hope, despair, etc.

Hatred isn't a disease in and of itself. Like any other emotion, it has its extremes and its benefits.

Hating Hitler was not a disease of the mind, it was a moral imperative.
Hating Jews is a disease of the mind.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. The issue with focusing on hatred, though, is that it becomes really easy for many of us --

many well-meaning white liberals -- to think we're not part of the problem because we have friends who are POC and we don't burn crosses in people's yards. The problem runs much deeper than individual actions toward each other -- oppression is systemic, it is a basic part of this country's infrastructure, it underpins policies and practices of the government over its lifetime, and it benefits white people. It's a violent system that must be dismantled, and it won't be until white people realize that, acknowledge how it benefits them and dedicate themselves to undoing that violence.

[Gothmog]

7. This firsthand account refutes the MAGA teen's statement

Link to tweet

As tensions grew over the course of the encounter, I pulled out my phone, along with several others. Our videos became the documentation of this latest example of bigotry against indigenous lives. But make no mistake, it is not the first, and sadly it will probably not be the last.

People are responding so strongly to these videos because they are so emblematic of the violence that indigenous people have suffered for over 500 years in the United States. We have been raped, relocated, trafficked, separated, degraded, demoralized, and massacred by the United States government and a culture of media, economy, education, and religion that has dehumanized indigenous people for the entire history of this stolen country. Presently, this country continues to poison indigenous people by defiling our water and pumping drugs and alcohol into indigenous communities; regulate native bodies through tribal numbers and blood quantum laws; and force assimilation (culturally, spiritually).
These are tactics of genocide. An ongoing, unrecognized genocide.

These videos are a brutal reminder of a very real unfinished battle that indigenous people are still fighting. We are fighting to be acknowledged, to be counted, to be part of the future. Quite simply, we are fighting to exist.

But these videos are also a testament: a testament to the bravery, dignity, grace, strength, passion, and power of indigenous people. Leaders like Nathan are essential to the survival of indigenous people because they hold experience of our history and traditions. Indigenous elders have given their lives to protect our identities, our sovereignty, our lands, our people, our ways of being, only to be met time and time again with violence — or at the very least, the smug, smirking faces of our oppressors like the boys of Covington Catholic High School.