Love

When I was younger I went to the YMCA for camp and daycare. I was the only white kid, and not only am I so white that I'm almost transparent, but I also have red hair. I was the first person with red hair that any of the other kids had ever seen, and I got my hair pulled a lot. But I certainly didn't mind terribly, they never hurt me when they pulled my hair. And I was never different, really, after the first couple of weeks. We all swam together, and played with legos and invented crazy games. I lost touch with all those girls a long time ago, but I loved them all and I still think of them often. When I showed up to their birthday parties it didn't matter that I was the only white kid there, I was never the white kid, I was just Rachel. I put the pinata mask on too, and it blocked everything out except for their voices, their laughter, the sounds of kids being kids.

But kids turn into adults, and more often than not adults become their parents. I don't believe in color-blindness, though my mother would be quick to say that there is such a thing. But I live in the real world, where people judge people based on appearances, based on first impressions, based on what they've heard and not what they have been able to determine for themselves.

Generalisations turn into stereotypes, turn into opinions turn into hate. The Nazis weren't thinking of the families of the Jews when they shuffled them into box cars. The IRA doesn't see the Irish blood coursing through the veins of their "enemy." All they see is hate.

I have a serious problem with hate. Which brings me to my point that I really, sincerely, would like people to stop using the word hate. Every time I hear it, it makes me uneasy. So casually, people can "hate" a person for being annoying, they can "hate" a group of people sitting on the bleachers at a volleyball game, they can "hate" a person because they don't like the colour of their skin, or the way they talk, or where they are from, or the nasty things they have heard about THAT group. THOSE people. No one is THOSE people, there are no THOSEs. There are only people, and individuals.

Don't tell me you hate someone, and then cry because you heard someone hates you. You have no idea what hate is. Show me the tattoo on your wrist from the camp where they killed your entire family just because you are Catholic. She me the scars from where you were beaten, just because you are white and all the other kids are black.

Show me the love in your heart for all people, show me the willingness you have to lend all people the other cheek, lend all INDIVIDUALS the other cheek.

How dare you hate someone, hate a group of people, denounce someone, mistrust an entire group, reject the weary, befriend the gossip, when you call yourself a Christian. When you call yourself a good Catholic, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a lover of God, a lover of life, a lover of freedom and air and good food and flowers and safety. Hate is something unfathomable to me, and I can't for one minute believe that my peers can grasp hatred any better than I.

Love everyone for who they are.