"I can't stand being around him."
"Seeing her face makes me sick."
I hate you.
Now, tell me. How does that make you feel? Whether someone says it to your face, or it's an implication made on social media, how do you feel when you read something that is an attack on you and your character?
My guess, depending on you as a person, would either be mad or sad.
The group of angry people likely clench their hand around their phone as their eyebrows draw together. In their head, they spit obscenities at the person who posted it, and the next step is to passive aggressively make posts back. If the hate was said directly to them, a verbal or physical fight will ensue, thus spreading the hatred.
The other person, the one who is saddened by the post, will stare at the screen blankly, trying to make some sense out of the hatred that was thrown at them. If it is said to their face, they take those bullets called words quietly, without any rebuttals or comments. This sadness festers inside them, and their hatred grows.
As I have gotten older, I have witnessed and experienced more hatred than what seems logical. People are bound to hate you and slander you, but the world seems to be taking on an awful shade of red, where hatred has become so commonplace that we now have a term for these people: "haters". We've branded them!
To me, a rather peaceful person, this is becoming extreme. Instead of trying to cull this increasing animosity, we instead created a word for the instigators, and this word gives them power. These people who spread hate can now acknowledge the fact that we're noticing them.
Let's step away from more mundane instances of hatred and take a look at this through a wider scope.
Racial discrimination, homophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia. All of these are forms of hatred against a group of people. These words are the manifestations of widespread hate, and now they are mainstream problems.
Since the dawn of time, men have placed themselves above women. In earlier times, women had no rights, and their place was in the home. Today, women may have much more freedom, but the hatred against them is just hidden better. It is concealed through the unequal payment at work and the fear women feel when they walk alone at night.
The LGBTQ+ community has also dealt with widespread hatred and condemnation. This community has never fully been accepted in society due to the prejudice against them. Of course, progress has been made in the last decade, especially in 2015 with gay marriage being legalized throughout the whole US. However, all people heard of the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub that killed about 50 people, and it was targeted at this community, which shows that this hatred is still far from dying.
Hatred is also shown to those who are Middle Eastern or Muslim, both in the United States and overseas. Whenever a tragedy strikes the US, the first thought is that it is the work of terrorists. This is most people's first response. Hatred of this group has conditioned other people to think the same way, when in reality, people are just too ignorant to educate themselves on the Muslim religion.
"But ISIS is made up of Muslims."
This is highly untrue. Just a few days ago in Baghdad, ISIS took credit for the bombing that killed hundreds of Muslims who were celebrating the end of Ramadan. Furthermore, the Muslim religion promotes peace, stating, “…if any one killed a person, it would be as if he killed the whole of mankind... (Quran). But sure, that definitely sounds like a bunch of heartless killers (insert sarcasm).
The most recent show of hatred against blacks was shown through Alton Sterling, who was restrained by white cops and then shot. Sources say he was not resisting, yet he was still killed. Just days later, another black man, Philando Castile, was shot by a cop when he reached into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. A man was killed because a cop made a racist assumption that he had a concealed gun. In the past few years, the number of blacks killed by white cops is astronomically high, (136 black people killed by police just in 2016) only proving that racism is still very present in society. This sort of hatred primarily exists because of whites believing that they are superior. Because many whites still think that we are living in the 1800s. Not only is this hatred, but it is also blatant injustice and an aversion to changing the past.
Hatred is one of the deadliest feelings in this world, for it takes a perfectly happy and healthy person, and it changes them, or worse. This hatred stems from people who are trying to feel superior or trying to find someone to blame, when really, the only finger we should be pointing is at ourselves, for we are all guilty of spreading this negativity.
