The biggest takeaway from The Oscars was the passionate acceptance speech of actor/director/writer Tyler Perry, who won last night’s humanitarian award. Perry’s message was simple: Stop hating.
A command to stop hating seems like a simple and obvious command, but in America today it is one of the greatest challenges we face.
It was 52 years ago today, April 26, 1969 that the soundtrack to the rock musical “HAIR” became the new #1 album in America. While “HAIR” encompassed a myriad of controversial topics supported by a young, counterculture generation, preaching love was a prevailing theme. And 52 years later, we are still preaching the concept of love over hate.
Strong political disagreement can exist without the deep-rooted hate we are witnessing today, and that hate today is the source that crime thrives upon. In his acceptance speech at The Oscars, Tyler Perry said:
“And in this time, with all of the Internet and social-media and algorithms and everything that wants us to think a certain way, the 24-hour news cycle...it is my hope that all of us would teach our kids, and I want to remember: just refuse hate. Don’t hate anybody.
Perry gave credit to his mother for teaching him to refuse to hate, and his hope is that parents teach their children to refuse to hate.
Hate has seeped into every corner of American society. Hate, and a general lack of feeling love, contributes to crime involving young Americans who come into this world void of parental presence. Political hate has transcended every echelon of society and inspired many Americans to show their contempt for an opposing presidential candidate’s victory by physically attacking the seat of American democracy on January 6.
Promoting a world without hate is unrealistic, but denouncing the acceptance of hate is realistic and critical in the fight to curb the general sense of unrest.
Over the weekend in New Orleans, 7 people were shot in a 24-hour period between Saturday and Sunday. Those shootings involved young people and all occurred after midnight. What are the chances that those individuals with guns have not been loved and have no reference to love for one another? If love is the opposite of hate, then it is logical to equate hate with a wholesale lack of love.
Let’s extend the idea that the opposite of love is hate and that hate contributes to violent behavior to politics. The pure hate that is currently being expressed toward those who harbor different political views has inspired some physical violence, but it has also led to family and friends becoming estranged for the first time. And while that hate may be more cerebral than the primal manifestation of hate that leads to gun violence, it has still become part of America’s societal ambience.
Among the shootings that occurred in the French Quarter of New Orleans, 2 of the shootings happened in the 100 block of Bourbon Street, which is the entrance to arguably the country’s most famous street. I live 3 blocks from that location and so do a lot of other people who are paying a high price to live in nice apartments in downtown New Orleans. I have heard the sound of gunshots from my apartment and, in one case, saw a dead body in the street just a block away.
The sense of lawlessness in New Orleans is out-of-control, and we are fortunate that this trend has not yet put a significant financial dent in our local economy that thrives on tourism.
At The Oscars, Tyler Perry said that he refuses to hate someone “because they are Mexican or because they are Black or White or LGBTQ,” and added “I refuse to hate someone because they are a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian. I would hope we would refuse to hate.”
People will say that Perry’s speech was great, but most will refuse to act. It is up to us to change and to demand that the society around us change. It’s okay to hate a rival sports team or to hate the ideas of a particular political figure, but it is not okay to hate someone for who they are from birth.
The tribal nature of politics has inspired hating groups without taking time to consider that every individual within an assigned group cannot be judged in the same way just because they are part of the group. That is the convenient and mindless way to support the hate individuals hold inside.
Will we refuse to hate? It is more likely that we will refuse to change.