July 26th, 2020
This is America.
So, you can look at this photo; but I need you to really see it.
See her face. See her behavior. See her shirt.
This is the kind of facade that hate has built in this country.
Trevor Noah was on Hot Ones last year, and he had an interesting thing to say about hate. He compared it to hot sauces. He said some bottles say “Hot Sauce” and you put it on your tongue and it’s hot. But some sauces, you put on your tongue, and it’s not hot at all. It’s only when you go to the bathroom later that you realize it was, in fact, hot sauce.
He said he prefers to deal with the first kind; at least they’re upfront about their hate, and it gives you somewhere concrete to go. You can ask specific questions and they’re not hiding their intentions.
Beware of the second kind, though. Good luck with them, he says.
That’s what this woman, photographed yesterday in Bloomington, embodies.
Her shirt says Love Love Love.
Her words and actions scream hate hate hate.
The couple who were captured wearing Nazi masks at a Minnesota Wal-Mart, however, were the former — and it made my blood boil watching nonetheless.
So, I’d like to make an update to the hot sauce metaphor: it’s all bad. There is no preferred level of hate, nor should there be a kind that is tolerated.
This isn’t a matter of free speech. This isn’t political; the people who call hate political are the kind who can’t deal with the fact that it exists simply as a human problem.
It’s human, which means it can infect anybody, and that is what scares people.
There are infinite, complex reasons to hate, as there are to lie. People see the world changing, and if it’s currently a world that benefits them, you’re seeing their true colors now.
The facades exist beyond clothing. People hide behind their religions, their families, their friends, their philosophical or intellectual strengths. But if you look past all of it, you will see love or fear. And if you see fear, then know that the person behind it is wrong.
Some us are trying to push open ourselves, our capacities for compassion and reason and respect.
And some of us are wearing shirts that say Love Love Love while trying to destroy the world.
Take the time to figure out who you are.
The Den 