The Culture of Hate

I thought long and hard on how to go about creating my first post here and decided, that since there is so much to discuss, share, or just marvel at around the world, to have a daily theme. Coming from a busy Monday (which is the start of a work or school week for most of us), here's a personal advocacy speech, hoping to ignite and keep you burning this week with an inspirational Tuesday!

Emotions are what make us human. Have you ever felt deeply passionate about someone or about something? Did you act upon that intense feeling? Is that what we call love? How about that feeling of loathing? That merely thinking about something or someone makes you writhe in complete and utter disgust or discomfort? Perhaps, we can call this hate. Have you also done something to express this emotion? I have this favorite story written by Jerry Spinelli, about nonconformity titled Stargirl which has a sequel titled Love, Stargirl. I’ve had four copies of Stargirl because sometimes books have this habit of not going back. There was this dialogue that really struck me in the sequel and it goes like this,

“If you start by hating one or two people, you won't be able to stop. Pretty soon you'll hate a hundred people."
"A zillion?"
"Even a zillion. A little hatred goes a long, long way. It grows and grows. And it's hungry."
"Like Cinnamum?"
"Even hungrier. You keep feeding it more and more people, and the more it gets, the more it wants. It's never satisfied. And pretty soon it squeezes all the love out of your heart"--I pointed to her heart; she looked down at her chest--"and all you'll have left is a hateful heart.”

The culture of hate exists. It exists here in the Philippines. We do not have acts, policies, or solutions to mitigate or even eradicate it because we haven’t given that much importance to its impact to the society and the community. We haven’t really looked at hate from a nationalistic perspective. To many, it is still but an emotion. But emotions create words and actions. Words and actions affect lives. Today, I’d like you to look at hate not as an emotion, but a dangerously emerging culture.

Hate groups exist and they are defined as groups who have beliefs and practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics. Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafletting, or publishing (https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map). Hate crimes are concerns of most countries but they vary greatly in the kinds of behaviors included. Currently, there are no laws, bills, or mechanisms regarding hate crimes in the Philippines (Jamolin, 2014. https://akbayan.org.ph/news/12-press-releases/489-lawmakers-studying-the-filing-of-bill-against-hate-crimes).

Hate groups engagement using social media has garnered more likes and grew online in 2016 (https://www.safehome.org/resources/hate-on-social-media/). Philippines leads the globe in time spent on social media wherein Filipinos spent an average of 4 hours and 17 minutes per day on social media sites such as Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, based on active monthly user data from social media companies as recent as Jan. 2017 (Camus, 2017. http://technology.inquirer.net/58090/ph-worlds-no-1-terms-time-spent-social-media). There are considerable amount of information on hate crimes in the US and other countries are following on this recent awakening (Shaw & Barchechat, 2002).

A cause only moves if it’s started by, from, and within an individual. Now this isn’t something that will happen overnight. We’ve seen hate online, in news, on television, on the road, with relationships, with families, and sometimes, within ourselves. What I am asking from you is that you acknowledge that the culture of hate exists, that when people excessively hurl insults or vicious verbal attacks, it is not a freedom of expression, it is hate. When human rights are impaired, hate becomes a crime. The avenue to hate has grown so wide that everyone has become a target. When you scroll up your timelines, may you be more vigilant in clicking that like or love sign on a post that diminishes a person’s attributes. Hate is hungry. Let’s not feed it. Do you want the world to be left with a hateful heart? No. I am holding my heart right now and I am sure that I have never hated on anything or anybody my entire existence. Yes, not even that NBA player who left my most beloved team because he wanted more money. Not even my father who chose to live on his own 8 years ago. Not even the entire world when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Not even myself for failing the people who have always believed in me.