Where does hatred come from?
USA TODAY reported on June 22 that a former KKK member has been found guilty of manslaughter in the notorious 1964 murder of three civil rights workers. As a Baptist minister myself, I find it offensive that Edgar Ray Killen, the guilty Klansman, was a part-time Baptist minister.
What possesses people to be so full of hate towards others in minority groups to commit such acts? Such people will give you a long list of reasons that the minority is to be despised. Where do those reasons come from? The hater will tell you that black, brown, and yellow people are detestable. So are aboriginal peoples, gays, certain women, and in America today conservatives, liberals, Democrats or Republicans.
How come someone hates people and then, when they get to know them, they find they are pretty decent or even lovable. What changed to make them so different? Clearly the change was not in them. They are no different. The change has to be in the accuser. Depth psychology tells us that such hate for all those minorities is also in the hating person. Such hate and rage originates, not in the victim, but in the hater. When a person is caught up in such hate for someone else, it is because they have projected on them much of their own self hate. Many people have grown up in the kind of environment where they have learned that they are never good enough. They have learned to hate the parts of themselves that seem to contribute to their being not good enough.
When they hate someone, it is because that person has some characteristics that they have learned to hate in themselves. They see that quality in the person and then, through the psychological process called projection, heap all their own self-hate on them as well. This is what fuels peoples hate for minorities.
What is the cure? We all need to get to know ourselves much better, so we can learn to love ourselves unconditionally. Then we will love others unconditionally as well. We will be talking a lot more about self-acceptance on our website.
What has your experience been like?
September 6th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
Dr. Sharam:
I finally did it, and it is the “Where does hatred come from?” article that I had first wanted to comment on.
I’m sure you would find it offensive that Edgar Ray Killen, the KKK Member was a part-time Baptist minister, you being one yourself….a Baptist Minister, I mean. Yet things could be worse, you could be Roman Catholic, like myself,
In the dictionary, it states that ” prejudice is an adverse judgement or opposition formed without knowledge or examination of the facts”.
The second definition is ‘an act or state of holding unreasonable preconveived judgements or convictions.”
Sounds like a mental disorder to me. Hatred, turned violent and the victims crime is?…….being different than the perpetrator in some way.
Is hatred not part of the human condition that affect anyone, given the right circumstances? Yet, if one needs circumstances to ‘happen’, then where does the hate evolve when, e.g. you hate blacks and know not one. I’m seeing a need for a couch and a pychologist again.
I was lucky to grow up in an all white neighbourhood. That sounds prejudice in itself, but what I mean by that is that I was not exposed to the hate, I was 15 and had my first job. A couple of us went down to a photo booth and got our pictures taken. One of my co-workers was black. I was so excited to show Mom and Nan. The reaction I got was cool and negative. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!?!
Well, there was no need to show me their feelings before. Then Mom explained about her childhood, living in poverty in the city. She had to walk by predominantly black girls on her way to school and she was terrified every time. She was blonde. She was a minority.
Mom didn’t end up with hate, but never lost her fear and apprehension. I believe fear can play a part in hate. Real fear, meaning what Mom had to deal with or just plain ‘ol fear of the unknown.
Case in point, homophobia; I believe that fear fuels this hate - fear of being gay, fear of being perceived gay, so if you beat one up or kill one, than you can’t be gay.
Nan had stronger negative feelings, which brings us to ‘when were the slaves freed?” It was only 1866, for God’s Sake…..no one is at the back of the bus now. Haven’t we come a long way. I was shocked when I found out a few years back that homosexuality was just removed as a mental disorder sometime in the ’70’s. Part of this cure is still time.
Prejudism is passed down, it can be a learned ‘hate’.
I agree with Depth Psychology when someone who hates themselves ‘projects’ their hate on to someone else. But this is going on all the time, and it is not a ‘prejudice’ issue, it is an abuse issue.
We all do need to get to know and unconditionally love ourselves but MY experience has been that 3/4 or more of the population aren’t very self-aware. So now the question is…How do we get the message out of the importance of self love,and the message and MEANING of unconditional love. Schools, a sure way. Another would be to reach parents (could be through the schools, again) , stressing the importance of unconditional self-love and how it can make or break a life. At the same time, unconditional ‘acceptance’ for those different than themselves.