Dear Hateful White People, I’m sorry. I was wrong about you. For a long time I thought I hated you. I may have even made you feel that way, too. You would pop up on my social media feed, drive past me in traffic, say something at Thanksgiving, or I'd overhear you at a restaurant—and what seemed like rage would rise up quickly within me. I thought it was abject hatred.
Beautifully stated, John. I view such people as enslaved by their own unwillingness or inability to change. Can't imagine being burdened by such heavy chains.
To understand deeply the problem behavior being so lovingly described and lamented here, I recommend reading "White Rage" by Carol Anderson, "White Rural Rage" by Timothy Schaller and Paul Waldman, and many of the outstanding and insightful essays and other works published over the past 40 years by Wendell Berry, who described the problems, the government's structural mischief and counterproductive, misguided involvement (starting with Earl Butz's Ag Dept debacles), and potential remedies without the hatred, prejudice, and diversionary tactics used by so many of rural folks' congressional representatives over the past decades (and continuing today). Sadly, the years of structural changes wrought by global capitalism have been a boon to the more developed parts of the country, but the havoc wreacked upon rural areas (closed hospitals, rusting infrastructure, lack of economic opportunity, reliance upon extractive economic industries, loss of the younger generation, as well as technological, cultural, social and geographic isolation generally) has been largely ignored by the very representatives who they elected to fix them. Instead, they divert attention by repeating ad nausem multiple tropes designed to create blame and focus animosity against people and groups wholly uninvolved in and innocent of the genesis of their problems (e.g., black and brown-skinned people, gay people, transgender people, drag performers, and anyone not subscribing to their flavor of the thousand worship choices available for comfort or, sadly, self-righteous justification). Indeed, have MTG, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz, Mike Johnson, or anyone in MAGA proposed or even discussed the host of rural problems addressed by their constituents? Thus, emotion substitutes for reason and we get the seemingly intractable mess in which we currently find ourselves. Although "one cannot reason a person out of a position they did not use reason to adopt", eventually, when a breakthrough occurs - and I must believe that it will - we need to be armed with facts and a proactive programmatic focused and specific set of responses to inform and guide a real world solution. The references provided above support both the diagnosis and that response. Good luck to all of us - we shall need it. Thank you, John, for your recent flurry of articles addressing these existential issues.
Wholly cow, you just put into words what I have been struggling to define within my life. I don’t hate my neighbor that has a “Jesus loves you” sign in their yard along with several red, white and blue signs and flags. As well as an American flag that, until recently, has been flying upside down. Her and her adult daughter belong to a Christian Nationalist church in my city that have a political pac that gives financial support to help elect extremist school board members. This same church’s pastor has put the LGBTQ community in the same group as Hama, Hezbollah and Isis. This pastor has gone after teachers and calls them groomers. I can’t hate them, that would make me no better than them. I feel sorry for them, I have sympathy for them. I just couldn’t put my finger on my emotions when I talk to others about my neighbors, who use to be my friends. But you did it!! You put words to my feelings. I have to live by my yard flag in my front yard…
You hit the nail on the head. Their anger comes from deep fear.. i also see sadness that’s why they are trapped in the past. Make America Again - totally touches their hearts. As the culture changes through the years, so many of their favorite things and beliefs become minimized. Fewer people attend church, more people live together, more children are born to single mothers, more women work. Women who worked at military factories became known as Rosie the Riveters and were shunned and verbally attacked. When World War II end and servicemen returned home, the women were fired so men could be hired. The conflicting attitudes on women working have never really gone away. Some men still think of wives at home taking care of the baby, cleaning the house, running errands and cooking dinner.
I love this! It has to be a miserable existence to have hate in one's heart for no reason except someone is different. I stay far away from hateful people.
Not sure this works for me. Many in my family grew up exactly the same life as mine and are full on MAGA. They were indoctrinated very young, as was I. But I was curious and educated myself and my understanding of how things really work is what "woke" me up. They want to stay asleep. It's a choice.
HELLO JOHN! EXCELLENT AS ALWAYS - RIGHT ON TARGET!
You are right, we cannot change them.......BUT.....I see a pinhole of light piercing their forever closed heart chamber with the words and intent you have shared here. It may not break it open, but it's skimming the icy surface.
THEY feel entitled. BIG PROBLEM. BIG MISTAKE!
If they weren't in power or own multiple guns, we may have a chance at just ignoring them, accepting them as the fabric. But THEY do so much damage - and when will they stop???
CAN YOU CONSIDER AIRING THIS POEM NATIONALLY??????
Every single word of this is the truth. John, I am sincere when I say this: you have to be in the top five authors who I have ever read who can so thoroughly articulate exactly how i feel on this topic. I cannot lie. I have so many hangups with religion, having been raised with the more virulent and harmful strain of evangelicalism and I am incredibly wary when it comes to religious writers. You constantly surprise and inspire me with your kind, insightful, empathetic words and perspectives. It gives me hope for our future to know that there are Christians like yourself out there, working to bring the actual true message of Jesus back into the church. I will probably never actively participate in church, but you have gone a very long way towards reassuring me that the entire church isn't a lost cause. Please never stop writing. The world needs you and everyone like you so much right now. Thank you ❣️
I would question whether there ever kindness underneath was present. If it existed, was it smothered under misery and unwillingness to embrace something that would clear that misery? Is it easier to take on that misery, rather than to acknowledge it and make strides to repair that damage? Or is misery and resentment merely their nature? I don't know...I would like to think there is better, and yet, I don't see a time when this is possible. Free will allows for much, and it is sad that so many choose misery instead of joy. I know from personal experience how destructive choosing misery is, and the liberation choosing to move away from it provides. We can only hope that an epiphany moves them away from the pain they've chosen.
Which kind of weakens the whole argument that they are suffering from their bigotry. They are having a very easy time taking the path of least resistance.
True, and their religion is based on suffering, but they've made others suffer, instead of just themselves. Really, a full divergence from what the bible teaches.
Perfect. I struggle with this. Immediate impulse is to hate right back, but thats cowardly and leads nowhere positive. These hateful people aren’t strong enough to see they’re being manipulated by the system. And its hard to watch that happen, because, in the end it is their misguided hate that will destroy us too.
This is a great post!! I hope it gets read by the people who so deeply need it, who so desperately hate others. Please keep writing and posting, and here's hoping that your work will help the haters to gain an understanding of what drives them, as well as to find a way to change.
Beautifully stated, John. I view such people as enslaved by their own unwillingness or inability to change. Can't imagine being burdened by such heavy chains.
Yes, 💯! Your description immediately conjured up for me the image of Jacob Marley from "A Christmas Carol". 😊
To understand deeply the problem behavior being so lovingly described and lamented here, I recommend reading "White Rage" by Carol Anderson, "White Rural Rage" by Timothy Schaller and Paul Waldman, and many of the outstanding and insightful essays and other works published over the past 40 years by Wendell Berry, who described the problems, the government's structural mischief and counterproductive, misguided involvement (starting with Earl Butz's Ag Dept debacles), and potential remedies without the hatred, prejudice, and diversionary tactics used by so many of rural folks' congressional representatives over the past decades (and continuing today). Sadly, the years of structural changes wrought by global capitalism have been a boon to the more developed parts of the country, but the havoc wreacked upon rural areas (closed hospitals, rusting infrastructure, lack of economic opportunity, reliance upon extractive economic industries, loss of the younger generation, as well as technological, cultural, social and geographic isolation generally) has been largely ignored by the very representatives who they elected to fix them. Instead, they divert attention by repeating ad nausem multiple tropes designed to create blame and focus animosity against people and groups wholly uninvolved in and innocent of the genesis of their problems (e.g., black and brown-skinned people, gay people, transgender people, drag performers, and anyone not subscribing to their flavor of the thousand worship choices available for comfort or, sadly, self-righteous justification). Indeed, have MTG, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz, Mike Johnson, or anyone in MAGA proposed or even discussed the host of rural problems addressed by their constituents? Thus, emotion substitutes for reason and we get the seemingly intractable mess in which we currently find ourselves. Although "one cannot reason a person out of a position they did not use reason to adopt", eventually, when a breakthrough occurs - and I must believe that it will - we need to be armed with facts and a proactive programmatic focused and specific set of responses to inform and guide a real world solution. The references provided above support both the diagnosis and that response. Good luck to all of us - we shall need it. Thank you, John, for your recent flurry of articles addressing these existential issues.
Beautifully said Rod Marvin!! And as always John of course. What a mess we are in. 🙏🏻🙌💔
Wholly cow, you just put into words what I have been struggling to define within my life. I don’t hate my neighbor that has a “Jesus loves you” sign in their yard along with several red, white and blue signs and flags. As well as an American flag that, until recently, has been flying upside down. Her and her adult daughter belong to a Christian Nationalist church in my city that have a political pac that gives financial support to help elect extremist school board members. This same church’s pastor has put the LGBTQ community in the same group as Hama, Hezbollah and Isis. This pastor has gone after teachers and calls them groomers. I can’t hate them, that would make me no better than them. I feel sorry for them, I have sympathy for them. I just couldn’t put my finger on my emotions when I talk to others about my neighbors, who use to be my friends. But you did it!! You put words to my feelings. I have to live by my yard flag in my front yard…
”Hate has no home here”
Thank you
You hit the nail on the head. Their anger comes from deep fear.. i also see sadness that’s why they are trapped in the past. Make America Again - totally touches their hearts. As the culture changes through the years, so many of their favorite things and beliefs become minimized. Fewer people attend church, more people live together, more children are born to single mothers, more women work. Women who worked at military factories became known as Rosie the Riveters and were shunned and verbally attacked. When World War II end and servicemen returned home, the women were fired so men could be hired. The conflicting attitudes on women working have never really gone away. Some men still think of wives at home taking care of the baby, cleaning the house, running errands and cooking dinner.
I love this! It has to be a miserable existence to have hate in one's heart for no reason except someone is different. I stay far away from hateful people.
Not sure this works for me. Many in my family grew up exactly the same life as mine and are full on MAGA. They were indoctrinated very young, as was I. But I was curious and educated myself and my understanding of how things really work is what "woke" me up. They want to stay asleep. It's a choice.
Agree 100%. I have zero sympathy for people who choose ignorance and bigotry because they prefer it.
It's been heartbreaking. Several loved ones are lost to me. I'm waiting for them to wake up. But it's insane how stubborn they are.
HELLO JOHN! EXCELLENT AS ALWAYS - RIGHT ON TARGET!
You are right, we cannot change them.......BUT.....I see a pinhole of light piercing their forever closed heart chamber with the words and intent you have shared here. It may not break it open, but it's skimming the icy surface.
THEY feel entitled. BIG PROBLEM. BIG MISTAKE!
If they weren't in power or own multiple guns, we may have a chance at just ignoring them, accepting them as the fabric. But THEY do so much damage - and when will they stop???
CAN YOU CONSIDER AIRING THIS POEM NATIONALLY??????
Every single word of this is the truth. John, I am sincere when I say this: you have to be in the top five authors who I have ever read who can so thoroughly articulate exactly how i feel on this topic. I cannot lie. I have so many hangups with religion, having been raised with the more virulent and harmful strain of evangelicalism and I am incredibly wary when it comes to religious writers. You constantly surprise and inspire me with your kind, insightful, empathetic words and perspectives. It gives me hope for our future to know that there are Christians like yourself out there, working to bring the actual true message of Jesus back into the church. I will probably never actively participate in church, but you have gone a very long way towards reassuring me that the entire church isn't a lost cause. Please never stop writing. The world needs you and everyone like you so much right now. Thank you ❣️
I would question whether there ever kindness underneath was present. If it existed, was it smothered under misery and unwillingness to embrace something that would clear that misery? Is it easier to take on that misery, rather than to acknowledge it and make strides to repair that damage? Or is misery and resentment merely their nature? I don't know...I would like to think there is better, and yet, I don't see a time when this is possible. Free will allows for much, and it is sad that so many choose misery instead of joy. I know from personal experience how destructive choosing misery is, and the liberation choosing to move away from it provides. We can only hope that an epiphany moves them away from the pain they've chosen.
If they didn’t hate people unlike them, they would just be ordinary flawed humans with the ordinary struggles and consolations.
Ultra hate makes them strong, ever- righteous bringers of justice to a broken world.
It’s a powerful drug with a great high. Why feel sorry for people who are having such a good time?
It's also the easy path, one that takes no effort.
Which kind of weakens the whole argument that they are suffering from their bigotry. They are having a very easy time taking the path of least resistance.
True, and their religion is based on suffering, but they've made others suffer, instead of just themselves. Really, a full divergence from what the bible teaches.
Perfect. I struggle with this. Immediate impulse is to hate right back, but thats cowardly and leads nowhere positive. These hateful people aren’t strong enough to see they’re being manipulated by the system. And its hard to watch that happen, because, in the end it is their misguided hate that will destroy us too.
This is a great post!! I hope it gets read by the people who so deeply need it, who so desperately hate others. Please keep writing and posting, and here's hoping that your work will help the haters to gain an understanding of what drives them, as well as to find a way to change.