Stoking Hate & Creating Fear

That seems to be where we are. Some of it is the result of the actions and the realities of the world that we're seeing every day. Some of it is the result of our presidential campaign process that allows people to rant and rave for a year and a half before an election in contrast to countries that limit campaigns to 6 to 8 weeks. We've been affected by war, by economic injustice, by environmental threats, by religious fanaticism or religious bankruptcy. We seem to be reaping some of the results.

As peacemakers and peacekeepers struggle with the challenge of keeping people focused on sensible responses to world events, we have people who stoke the hate and create the fear. Syrian refugees, Hispanic farm workers and migrants, Muslims, people who think, speak and look differently are all presented as our enemies, as outliers from the rest of us.

Donald Trump of course takes the cake, which seems to be his ultimate goal. He has questioned the President's loyalty, his religion and his birthplace. He has talked about killing the families of terrorists. He has promoted waterboarding and other methods of torture. Others have thrown out the concept of internment camps, similar to those that were used to hold US citizens of Japanese heritage during World War ll. These discussions I fear will get worse over the next few weeks and months.

Fear impacts how we process information. It takes over and overrides our normal way of thinking. It can be a terrible and irrational thing.

My own view is that we all have a responsibility to let these folks know that their language and ideas are irresponsible and not helpful. This type of talk needs to be stopped in its tracks whenever and  wherever possible. We can't accept it. Any more Islamophobia just helps create more radicalization.

We should certainly be appalled at beheadings, torture, the killing of innocent men, women and children. But we have to protect people, religions and nationalities from explosive hatred through speech and headlines.

After I wrote this, I saw an article where Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke and warned about an anti-Muslim backlash and I thought adding the link here may be useful. Here it is - Loretta Lynch Article