Hate Is A Learned Behavior

I have a lot going on in my mind after the recent active shooter situation in Dallas and the loss of police lives.  Anybody that knows me knows that I support the police.  Not only have I been working in a law enforcement capacity for 12 years now, but long before I became an adult I was taught to respect law enforcement and police officers.  If everybody was taught the same respect then maybe our world would be a different place.

Taught.  I’ve been thinking a lot about this word.  It is my personal belief that hate is a learned behavior.  A person isn’t born knowing how to hate.  They have to be taught how.  It is told to us as we grow and mature that somebody is different and that it is good or bad and safe or dangerous.  Think about a spider.  If you love spiders then you were probably taught that they are good for nature and they eat the pesky bugs.  If you hate spiders you were probably taught they can bite you and hurt you and thus you kill one the minute you spot it.  The same goes for people.  If you were taught that a person of a different race, religion, or sexual orientation is somehow bad or harmful then you will grow to dislike those types of people.  I’m not above prejudices nor have I never thought something ill of another human being.  Somewhere in my lifetime I have been taught those prejudices.  And I can guarantee you that I was taught even more and through experiences and education, I have re-taught myself.

There isn’t such a thing as a hate crime.  Hate is hate and a crime is crime.  If somebody has committed a crime, I hope they will be prosecuted for the injustice.  To say that somebody has been a victim of a hate crime is only because somebody called it that and in the eyes of this person, they were taught something different than somebody else was.  They only see their reality.  Everybody is entitled to their own option.  Just don’t tread on anybody else’s opinion.

Please keep in mind that the media’s only job is to stir the public’s opinion.  The media doesn’t relay the facts.  The media doesn’t know the back story of a situation or the events leading up to what they are reporting.  Be smart before you share information that isn’t clear because you are also only stirring the public further.  

I hate to get some thoughts out of my head so I can start to rest easy.  The police shootings in Dallas hit my harder than other events in the media.  I know what it is like to work behind the radio when your officer is shot.  I am sad for the family and friends but my heart really goes out to the dispatcher and police officers working during the massacre.  To have to continue to keep your composure through all the difficult events of the evening must have been horrific.  And then in the aftermath to know that you still have to do your job for the rest of the citizens in your jurisdiction.  It is one thing to hate the police but then it is another to expect those same police officers to protect you when you suddenly need help.

 

Stop the train of thinking that leads to hate.