Fear, Anger, Hate, and Violence: Part I

Editorial, The Week in Review – Analysis, Commentary, Opinion

05.12.2018

Yoda had this to say to Anikan Skywalker; “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the darkside…much fear in you I sense.”

There is a great deal of fear in America, and there is very little reason for any of it.

Fear is a normal and natural emotion. We are instinctively wary of other apex predators; lions and tigers and bears, other people. If we have experienced trauma; physical, emotional abuse, then we may have even deeper reservoirs of fear.

That too would be normal.

Fear may also be exacerbated unnaturally, pushed beyond norms by manipulative people and agencies who seek to divide us from one another.

In America, white, evangelical protestant Christians, the largest group of Christians in the country, a country that is overwhelmingly Christian, they have been convinced that their way of life is under attack.

They are afraid.

In America, tens of millions of private citizens own hundreds of millions of guns. They have been convinced that their right to gun ownership is under threat.

They are afraid.

In America, people of European descent, the pink and white-skinned-ones, the majority of all people living here, they are afraid of everyone who does not look like them, they are afraid because they cannot see themselves in those “others.” They are afraid of the difference, just because it is different.

The pink and white-skinned Americans are angry, angry that their majority is quietly shrinking. They feel that their way of life is threatened. They shoot and kill people who are different from them. They call the police to intervene on their behalf, against those darker-skinned Americans and immigrants, and the police shoot and kill, and incarcerate them, because they are afraid.

America is the most powerful country in the world, the most powerful country the world has ever known. We are a colossus, a juggernaut of wealth and power.

The wealthy are afraid of losing even a little bit of their privilege, and they squeeze they labor force for every dime they are able too, deny benefits to their workers; lie, cheat, and steal from at every opportunity.

The wealthy and the powerful, not only will they deny the work of our best and brightest scientists who issue warnings that might affect their bottom line, now they refuse to let the work of scientists continue, because they do not even want to have to bother with a denial.

The force that seek to divide Americans from one another are great, they spin stories that are not rooted in reality.

We are duty bound to confront them, to bear witness, to speak, but not with anger, or hatred or violence. We cannot afford to return that coin, measure for measure.

I watched a story today about a group of people who had they police called on them by a fearful neighbor. She called the police because they were exiting a home that was not their own, but which they had rented through Air B n’ B. She called the police because they were different from her, she told the police they were burglars, and the police aggressively intervened.

The group of innocent people said that they were lucky they were not killed, and the sad truth is that they were right.