jasonderoga86 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jasonderoga86) wrote2024-02-22 11:24 am
jasonderoga86) wrote2024-02-22 11:24 am
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A Lesson from Nelson Mandela from work today. ✊🏾
This morning, as I arrived at work (30 minutes before opening time, as usual), I noticed a poster from our Black History Month banners. The quote included in the poster perfectly explains a point I've been trying to put into words for a good long time now. It's a quote from His Excellency, Nelson Mandela -- the champion who honorably opposed the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa. The quote goes as follows:
"No one is born hating another person because of the colour of their skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."
MLK also said,
"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too much a burden to bear."
There you have it, friends. Spite, especially in the form of racism, is not ordained by any sacred text, and no horseshit like "Manifest Destiny" justifies any actions based on the idea. Hatred is something that is taught and LEARNED, and therefore that hatred is of the hater's own creation and actions. If people are dishing out hate towards minorities/marginalized people, they should really look inside and understand that they weren't born with the hate. It was passed down and taught to them by their ancestors, and ancestors before theirs.
Racial hatred is ALL on the racist one's choice. We have free will, and therefore we are responsible for our own actions, full stop. If you choose to lay waste to an entire country, that's on you. If you choose to rebel against your own government because of some infantile feeling of "entitlement to the throne" or whatever, that's on you.
Finger pointing does nothing. Owning up to one's mistakes, on the other hand, does wonders.
EDIT: And while we're at it, let it be known that race is a social construct. It isn't biological. According to one particular source, "race" was conceived by the ideas of two men, Carl Linnaeus and Georges Cuvier (both White), to justify the Atlantic Slave Trade during the era of Colonialism. It's a fact that stuff like book bans are STILL trying to rewrite to this day, in a time where racist individuals in our government feel their so-called "privilege" is being threatened (which it never was -- they've ALWAYS had the privilege and advantage. This is a scorn for people this group hates on that basis alone.).
"No one is born hating another person because of the colour of their skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."
MLK also said,
"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too much a burden to bear."
There you have it, friends. Spite, especially in the form of racism, is not ordained by any sacred text, and no horseshit like "Manifest Destiny" justifies any actions based on the idea. Hatred is something that is taught and LEARNED, and therefore that hatred is of the hater's own creation and actions. If people are dishing out hate towards minorities/marginalized people, they should really look inside and understand that they weren't born with the hate. It was passed down and taught to them by their ancestors, and ancestors before theirs.
Racial hatred is ALL on the racist one's choice. We have free will, and therefore we are responsible for our own actions, full stop. If you choose to lay waste to an entire country, that's on you. If you choose to rebel against your own government because of some infantile feeling of "entitlement to the throne" or whatever, that's on you.
Finger pointing does nothing. Owning up to one's mistakes, on the other hand, does wonders.
EDIT: And while we're at it, let it be known that race is a social construct. It isn't biological. According to one particular source, "race" was conceived by the ideas of two men, Carl Linnaeus and Georges Cuvier (both White), to justify the Atlantic Slave Trade during the era of Colonialism. It's a fact that stuff like book bans are STILL trying to rewrite to this day, in a time where racist individuals in our government feel their so-called "privilege" is being threatened (which it never was -- they've ALWAYS had the privilege and advantage. This is a scorn for people this group hates on that basis alone.).
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