"...The problem is, we are tribal in our thinking...
We find comfort in numbers and turn off our subjective reasoning in exchange for community. To grow and gain power, tribal leaders must create enemies, even if there are none. Creating false enemies then creates real ones. Liberals then, cannot work with conservatives. Arabs can’t work with Jews. Hutus can’t work with Tutsis. Powerful men can’t work with powerful women. Alabama fans can’t mix with Auburn fans. Baptists look down on Methodists. [And, vice versa.]
I call this the hate trade. It’s a tribal system with a very real social economy that trades in hate. We see it in shock jock pastors attacking theologians, in talk show hosts using fear to pedal books and in foreign politicians demonizing people groups to justify weapons of mass destruction.
What we see in racism is a problem universal to all men and, as such, is in the heart of all men.
I call this the hate trade. It’s a tribal system with a very real social economy that trades in hate. We see it in shock jock pastors attacking theologians, in talk show hosts using fear to pedal books and in foreign politicians demonizing people groups to justify weapons of mass destruction.
What we see in racism is a problem universal to all men and, as such, is in the heart of all men.
Racism is a symptom of something else. [Hate.]
What I love, then, about the work of King, Morrison, West and Hughes, and perhaps the reason they’ve been so successful, is while scholarly, they went after the problem at its root, in the heart. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear,” King said.
Who can continue to hate a tribe who loves them? What greater argument is there for intellectual superiority than a philosophy that creates a loving heart? ..."
What I love, then, about the work of King, Morrison, West and Hughes, and perhaps the reason they’ve been so successful, is while scholarly, they went after the problem at its root, in the heart. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear,” King said.
Who can continue to hate a tribe who loves them? What greater argument is there for intellectual superiority than a philosophy that creates a loving heart? ..."
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