more of me

I wrote about hate crime, racism, etc. yesterday, and want to make more observations. When I am accusing you of hate and such, I am speaking of your thought life. I am judging your motives. This is totally illogical.

First of all, I may lash out against you verbally (by far the most prevalent category of hate crime) and not only not hate you, I may have deep care for you. When a parent goes off on their kid with spiteful language, is that “hate crime?” Of course, persistent verbal abuse can be damaging, but it is not classified as “hate crime,” as far as I understand.

Second, what if, rather than “hate,” I simply have a filthy mouth, as celebrated this week with the 25th anniversary of MTV. With the bigoted sexist droll that comes out of the mouths of so many of the celebrated singers, do I think they are all hateful? No, many are probably just crude and foolish. We don’t have criminal categories for crude and foolish, unless it results in crimes against body or property.

Third, I don’t really know myself completely, so how could you possibly be able to tell me with conclusive evidence that you know what I am thinking? It is a mark of self- obsessed hubris for me to be so sure about your motives and thoughts. This is why the Bible spends an abundance of time telling us to be careful of judging what others are thinking.

Even when you think you are a real victim of any of the ism’s of life, perhaps you should begin with not allowing someone else to gain an advantage over you by influencing you to think like a victim. If I don’t allow myself to get offended, I am working from strength rather than weakness.