I'm from Snellville, Georgia a stone's throw from Stone Mountain and just outside of Atlanta. I grew up in Gwinnett County Schools. Before primary school, I lived in Atlanta, GA and attended Pre-K and part of kindergarten there. Since the beginning of my formal education, in every school I've ever attended, kindness, honesty, and fairness were cornerstones of that education. Everything, from P.E. games with parachutes and square dancing to book reports on Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., conditioned me with those virtues in mind.
My education regarding American history was tempered with the complicated truth about Christopher Columbus and his ruthless tactics as he and other Europeans sought to conquer this land. I learned all about the disease that Europeans brought to North America wiping out many of the native Americans even before the wars began, all the while acknowledging the great country that grew from that conquest. We honored the victory of our forefathers with a pledge each morning and a flag outside our buildings.
I left high school fully aware that the Southern United States was built very much on the backs of slaves and indentured servants for which I was taught to feel both shame and gratitude. This country would likely not have succeeded in the same capacity without them and we owe them and their contemporary relatives admiration and respect for that.
I learned all about cultural bias on standardized tests and the many debates regarding affirmative action. I left for the University of Georgia fully equipped to continue that conversation at a higher level. In college, we discussed all the different ways you can look at systemic racism and ways to combat it, the challenge always being fairness to all people. There was dignity and consideration for all.
In my America 1978-2016, kindness, honesty and fairness were woven into the fabric. I didn't need to wear a shirt saying, "Stop Hate." It wasn't necessary because that principle was UNDERSTOOD. IT WENT WITHOUT SAYING. Disintegrationists will suggest that I'm a fool. That I was living in a fantasy land ignoring a cancer that was slowly killing us. And that in exchange for what? For THIS? For the current inability or unwillingness to debate? For the unabashed name calling amongst adults in media and politics? For the intolerance of differing opinions? For overt censorship and total corporate control of the people and their voices?
In 2016, Hilary Clinton and her support lost an election they thought was a slam dunk and they have been punishing the country for it ever since. It started with the overt undermining of the new president through the associated press, social media and government offices and then grew a life all its own as anarchists sensed their moment to grab onto the momentum. With any thought of actual PEACE in the rearview mirror, they embarked on a campaign to re-write history and create a new order.
I don't know what schools all of these people attended that taught them disdain for America, that suggested to them we were all on different teams. But I will say to them that they are the ones who have been lied to. And the current state of this nation is proof that their perspective is solving nothing and clearly making things worse. Wearing the words, "Stop Hate," empowers it. Dignifies it. Validates and encourages it. It demonstrates that the messenger is ironically hating something, whether it be hate itself, or more likely people who are different from him, a way to call others out, to pass judgement at the same time elevating himself to moral piety. There is no honor in wearing the shirt when the person wearing it is busy hating white men. Hating Karens. Hating republicans. Hating Christians. Hating Pro-lifers. Hating America.
To really stop hate, don't wear the shirt. Live the life. Be the person who doesn't jump at every opportunity to shame someone who doesn't want to take a vaccine or wear a mask and vice-versa. Pass up the chance to criticize a liberal or a conservative politician and if you must, use intelligent words and respectable counter points. Don't force someone to call you a man if you're not a man and don't exasperate a person who has gender issues. Show each other mutual respect. Forgive. Accept. Love. Tolerate.
To wear the shirt is lazy, contrite and assumptive. To live the life takes effort, commitment, consistency. The person who lives the life feels no need to brand himself. That's what confidence looks like. That's what conviction looks like. That's how integrity operates. So if you really want to stop hate in this world, let it begin with you not starting conflict.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Live the life.
