THE BRIDGE: The Hate that Hate Made
By
Darryl James
"Hate's
going Around, breaking many hearts. Stop it please before it goes
too far."
--Stevie Wonder, Love's In Need
There
is much written by poets about love, but the true warriors among us,
including Stevie Wonder, also write about hate, which really is going
around hurting people. It must be stopped.
Stephanie Mills sang a song about learning to respect the power of
love. It is real, because love is powerful. But we must also learn
to respect hatred, the equal and opposite of love, which is just as
powerful.
When you step into a war zone, you have to know that you may get hit
with shrapnel. You also have to realize that when people are shooting
at you, it is easy to lose your head and shoot back. Sometimes return
fire can simply flare the conflict.
Black males and females appear to be at war with each other in many
corners of this nation. Hateful things are being said back and forth,
and things are getting critical for those of us working for unity.
There are still many of us who love each other and who still work
against hatred and ignorance. Based on our commitment to each other,
we must highlight and combat the ignorant men and women who hate on
each other. Left unchecked, their hatred can appear more popular than
it really is.
I launched Bridging The Black Gender Gap, the book and speaking engagements
to initiate real discussions and begin the healing process.
I've been trying to move people by tapping into the hot topics that
cut deep into human nature. The upside is that some of us are awake
and realize that even if we disagree, we can still be committed to
our people, or at least have a discussion about the divergences. The
downside is that many of us have no idea how to have a conversation.
I get literal demands from people to have discussions with them after
they have cursed me or disrespected me in their disagreement with
me.
I get suggestions to "be nice," and to "soften my rhetoric"
in order that more may hear me. But no matter how much poetry we put
on it, things are still ugly and I will reach only those who are reachable,
no matter what approach I employ.
The ironic part is that the demands to be nice frequently come from
hateful idiots who are being anything but nice. Besides, where is
it written that hateful idiots can spew their waste at me, while I
take some high road and maintain decorum?
Hate is hard to resist and I am only human.
It's like the dark side of the force it's evil, but seductive. It's
also like the matrix you can become a part of it and not even know
that the real world has ceased to exist.
I get hundreds of emails each day from the media outlets carrying
my column and I try to respond to them all. Typically, I just delete
the hateful letters, because I'm not interested in dealing with ignorance
simply because someone disagrees with me. But one of them got to me.
Lola Talabi (swtpea_21xxxxx.com), a rotten brained female claiming
to be African and therefore, detached from the African American experience,
emailed me to tell me that I had an obligation to take denigration
from women (see "How Not to Date A Black Man") and that
my refusal was the primary problem with Black people in America.
What I will never understand is why some people can't just disagree
and move on. Why do they have to get all worked up and send hate mail
to someone they do not know? I don't understand, but it happens frequently
as it did with Talabi.
This self-hating ignoramus claimed that the behavior of "you
people" was the reason why she and other Africans separate themselves
from Blacks in America.
"The worldview of the average Black American don't go past his
ghetto," said the Black racist in standard uneducated English.
"Please, this ain't my home and I just sit and watch your African
American drama--that's all it is to me and most Africans--drama. No
identity, no history, no ambition, just anger. Stupid, trapped, misguided,
going nowhere anger.
"F--- you AND your African American women. You ain't no threat
or concern to anyone anyway."
The problem with this self-hating, racist freak of nature as I see
it is that she has been laying her ignorant hatred on everyone and
no one has checked her properly. The lack of checking has given her
a false sense of relevance and an apparent reason to share her vile
brain defecation with other people she infects.
My choices were to do the same and ignore her, or to show her that
even an intellectual can go there and properly deal with a hater's
hate.
So, I returned all of the evil crow's vitriol and I felt better. I
emailed her with a reflection of the hatred that she had conjured
up in her cold, bitter heart. It drove her crazy and then I disconnected.
People sling the slogan and wear the t-shirts asking "What Would
Jesus Do?" All I can say is that I am glad I'm not Jesus, because
I can't love everyone and I won't try. I prefer Allah in the Koran
and God in the Old Testament of the Bible‹if he didn¹t like
what he saw, he would bring down the vengeance and rain down pain
and trouble.
God understands and we should understand some simple things about
hatred, and some simple things about human behavior.
You see, as humans, we are but vessels. Whatever you put inside is
what will grow and spew forth. If you fill yourself with love and
good thoughts, you will be a nicer and more loving person. If you
fill yourself with hateful thoughts and listen to hateful angry messages,
you will spew meanness, sometimes without even realizing it.
Filling yourself means taking the love or the hatred spread by others
and not dealing with it properly. With hatred, sometimes, you can
ignore it, and sometimes you can simply let it go. Still, other times,
you have to return it to the hater who made it and brought it your
way.
A simple fact about hate is that it is hard for many haters to spread
evil in the open. Many pure haters want to be viewed in public as
lovers, but still pursue hatred and evil in the dark.
I have opened the "Hater's Hall of Infamy" on my new website
www.bridgecolumn.com to turn the light on some of the most ignorant
haters of my column who have sent their evil to me, thinking it was
secret and protected. An email sent to me is not protected speech.
I am sharing their hatred and their names with the world as I have
done here with Lola Talabi so that other haters may pause before unleashing
their vile bitterness.
I already knew how to deal with hate, but now I am more focused than
ever before. I know that I have to be swift, sure and exact when dealing
with hate. I confront it, redirect it, return it and then move on.
So, if you get an ugly email from me, and then you never hear from
me again, it's because I am returning your hatred and not allowing
you to bring me any more. You may show up on the "Hater's Hall
of Infamy," but you won't show up on my list of enlightened people
with whom to hold discussions.
If you are a hater, people probably don't like you either, and you
may need therapy. You can't leave your hatred with me, because it
isn't mine to begin with. It's yours and it's the hate that hate made.
