My mother was fond
of aphorisms, and one of her favorites was, “You catch more flies with a
teaspoon of sugar than you do with a cup of vinegar.” I’ve tried to live my
life with that in mind, though I admit sometimes I’ve failed abysmally. Still,
I think it’s a terrific guiding principle, and I am pleased my children seem to
have gotten that message.
One of the things
I’ve tried to teach my grandchildren—all seven of them, I’m proud to say—is to eliminate the word “hate” from their vocabularies. It’s a pretty strong,
vulgar word, and I don’t see any need for them to say it ever. One smart
sophist amongst them asked me if it wasn’t all right to say, “I hate it when my
collar is too tight.” He knew full well and good I wanted him to eliminate the
word in reference to people—and probably all living beings, even creepy
crawlers.
I am disturbed at
the level of hate in this country. Perhaps the white supremacists are the most
outstanding public example, but I am particularly disturbed by the vitriol on
Facebook about the Clintons and the Obamas. There’s also a swelling chorus
aimed at 45, though it hasn’t reached choir proportions yet.
One friend posed
the question of why, whenever something negative is posted about 45, someone
chimes in with an accusation about Hillary or Obama. Why indeed? That has
nothing to do with the subject at hand. If you are talking about 45’s behavior
or decisions or tweets, accusing Obama of something is totally irrelevant. But
such is the level of blind, unthinking hatred.
I shared a classy
picture of Michelle Obama with a line that reminded that she is the most
educated First Lady ever, with two degrees from Harvard and Princeton.
Immediately someone responded, “Why is she so stupid?” Requests from me and
several others to explain why the sender though Michelle was stupid went
unanswered, leading us to believe the person didn’t really exist or was a troll
or a bot (whatever the heck that is). But it all indicates a level of hate that
I can’t imagine.
The people who
hate—those who claim that Hillary is a criminal and should be locked up, that Obama was the worst president ever and ruined the country,
the man who sees 45 as the Lord’s warrior (really?)—have no substance to back
up their arguments. They just throw these statements into the mix and then
accuse me of being a blind liberal. I have learned the hard way that it is
senseless to argue with them, because facts mean nothing in their world. But it worries me that there are many in this
country who harbor, even nurture, such emotions.
As for the level
of hate on our streets, that too scares me. I remember the fear I knew as a
child on the South Side of Chicago, and today I keep thinking how I’d feel if I
were a black woman, watching my son, eighteen or twenty-eight, go out the front
door at night and wondering if he’d come home alive. Will he be shot by an
over-zealous law enforcement officer? Will he be the target of racial violence?
As a female and a mother, I can understand fear a lot more than I can hate.
I don’t want to
live in a country, a world where hate has such a strong presence, but I have no
idea how to combat it. Hate is blind, unreasoning, the last weapon of the
underdog. I pray for our country.
