Hate
by Eric Rodriguez
It comes from deep within,
It feeds off desire,
It feeds off sin,
It shows when loathing starts to grin,
Then this monster is released from within.
Full of anger,
Full of rage,
The beast escapes from its cage,
The innocent suffer,
The innocent pay,
But it is the host that begins to decay.
This is a cancerous being, able to take any shape.
It started at the beginning of time, and will respectively end with it.
It’s a crickit,
It’s a roach,
It’s a trucker,
It’s a coach,
It’s a writer,
It’s a friend,
It’s a little voice from within.
It exist in every being from the time of their birth,
It is our blessing, it is our curse
It keeps us balanced,
It makes us unique,
It pushes us to kill,
It pushes us to think, of the real purpose of this being.
It was put here to kill,
It was put here to save,
The reality is it works both ways.
As long as an opinion exist,
This curse will control plenty of fist.
A monster is typically viewed as a grotesque looking being,
that possesses super human abilities. One would never look at an average human
and say that he or she is a monster. This is because humans typically view
themselves as not being monstrous, therefore how could someone who looks,
acts and interacts like them ever be a monster. However, the reality of the
situation is that we are all monsters. There exists an emotion in every human
being that makes us monsters. This emotion, this monster, is hate. Although
this word has taken on different degrees of meaning over time, the general
definition is the same, disgust or loathing of something or someone.
Hate has existed since the beginning of time. It is an emotion, not learned,
but instead it is implanted neurologically in every human from the time of
their birth. This is why hate has taken on many different degrees of meaning
over time. Hate is an emotion that is self acknowledged during the mid-stage
of cognitive development. This is when kids become aware of their surroundings
and are able to identify with the world on a personal basis. This is in opposition
to earlier stages of cognitive development where the world is viewed through
a parents “eyes”. This means that in early stages of life, parents
shape our perception of the world. At the mid-stage of this development kids
have the ability to identify this emotion, but are not aware to the degree
which it is used. A child may say he or she hates carrots; obviously this
is different from a Caucasian saying he or she hates African Americans and
vice versa. This has lead the word hate to be used in a casual way. Instead
of being used when speaking of something at the extreme end of loathing or
disgust, it’s used as a way of describing dislike. This makes the word
hate, more monstrous, because although it’s said to describe a lesser
degree of dislike, the word itself can still hold the same power as the highest
degree of the word. It is this early acknowledgment as well as socities desensitization
of the word that makes hate a strong part of society.
Hate is very common in our society however; hate is often justified by sensible
reasoning. This is very common in situations such as war. War although typically
hate based, is justified, by the thought that it is for the greater good.
One war that was created based on hate is World War II. Hitler hated Jewish
people, and convinced most of Germany, that the eradication of these people
would lead to a better life. This also shows how hate can be blinding. It
wasn’t just eradication; it was torture, and Hitler mad it seems acceptable
by dehumanizing them. Other examples of hate in our society are hate groups,
such as the Klu Klux Klan (KKK). The KKK was responsible for countless numbers
of murders of African American. Members of the KKK, justify there actions
with the reasoning that, the world is a better place without African Americans.
The media can also be a prime source for viewing hatred in our society. On
the news often times when America is at war, reporters will give bias information.
Instead of really telling the full story, they will tell enough to make America
look like heroes. This provokes hatred from its viewers of other countries.
On September 11th 2001, a hate crime occurred that didn’t express hatred
towards a race, or an ethnicity, but instead towards a society. The Taliban
hated American society and sought out to destroy it, for the greater good
of the world. To accomplish their goal they high jacked four airplanes, flying
two into New York’s World Trade Centers, one into Washington D.C.’s
Pentagon and one that was brought down before it crashed into anything. The
result was the death of several hundreds of people. After September 11th,
hate crimes on Indian people, went up. This is because shortly after 9/11
a clip was shown of Indian people celebrating the attack. Clearly not every
Indian person is happy over what took place on that day however, Americans
blind hatred, caused them to view it that way. Hate is more then a word, it’s
a person, it’s a world view and it exists in many other forms all over
the world. Many of these examples show, how the hatred of an individual can
influence many individuals to hate. Individual hatred can be just as destructive
to society. There were a reported 7,462 hate crime incidents reported in 2002(fbi.gov/ucr/hatecrime2002).
This was only the reported number, there are believed to be several hundred
other non-reported hate crimes in America. The percentages are as follows,
hate crimes due to race made up 48.8% of the crimes, religious bias 19.1%,
sexual orientation 16.7%, disabilities .06% and national origin 14.8%(fbi.gov/ucr/hatecrime2002).
Hate is destroying our society by attacking social groups. This prevents our
society from ever being unified. If a monster is a being that holds super
human ability, hate holds great strength, because it has the ability to divide
a nation. Even after September 11th, where from personal experience, there
was a positive shift in how people were treating each other. Despite these
new found feeling of appreciation, there were still a reported 7,462 hate
crimes. This leads many to question, why? Why do we hate? Why does hate even
exist?
Many question the necessity of hate, but it is actually obvious
why hate is necessary in life. It is similar to the belief of the Ying-Yang,
which represents balance. For every emotion there is an opposite emotion.
For happiness there is sadness, for boredom there is excitement, and for hate,
there’s love. Love is a quality in society that if felt, is described
as the best thing in the world. Although September 11th was a tragedy in every
sense of the word, Americans, particularly, New Yorkers developed a deeper
love for both their city and the people in it. Hate provokes love. It only
makes sense that hate is a monster, because every monster has a weakness.
Werewolves are killed by silver bullets, vampires are weakened when confronted
with a religious symbol, and hate is weakened by love. The more that love
exists, the less hate can exist.
Hate, much like other monstrous beings, have the ability to transform others
into monsters. Hate needs a host in order to be effective. If it were to ever
find a majority number of host, it could lead to the end of our civil society.
There is the ability to hate in everyone, which makes hate one of the most
powerful and controlling monsters in our society. Although hate causes chaos,
it also provokes love, which restores order. Hate doesn’t exist to exist,
it exist to balance. “This is a cancerous being, able to take any shape.
It started at the beginning of time, and will respectively end with it”
(Quote from my final project poem).
