There are those who sneer at others because they have faith in the Divine, and they rattle off witticisms and snarky remarks to prove how much more clever and wise they are than those who believe. There are those who turn up their noses at the homeless, disregarding the fact that there is another person in a terrible situation. I am not suggesting that they have to give the homeless anything, but don't think you are better than they are, more worthy, or in a position to judge. There are those who still spout vitriol at other races, those who feel anyone who does not look like themselves is to be hated and vilified.
Take the case of Ruby Bridges.
Ruby was 6 years old and living in New Orleans in 1960 when her parents decided to send her to an all white school. They felt the opportunity would afford Ruby a better education and would be an important step for all African American children.
Ruby had to be escorted to school daily by Marshalls since the ignorant and racist white people of the area threatened her life, yelled insults at her, and protested with signs along the path to the school. Does anyone take offense at my calling those people ignorant whites? Too bad. That is what they were. Adults screaming and threatening a 6 year old child. Do you have a more sanitized word for that type of behavior? I don't. And if I did, I wouldn't use it anyway.
Teachers refused to have her in their classrooms. Parents removed their little white dumplings from the school in protest. But 1 teacher didn't have a problem with Ruby's enrollment in her classroom. That teacher treated Ruby just like every other child who entered her room.
In our present day, we frown at such ridiculous and racist behavior from our institutions, yet so many individuals still carry that coal of hatred in their hearts. Even worse, they pass their racism along to their children, ensuring that another generation will be sent out to continue the crusade. Hatred of minorities, hatred of homosexuals, hatred of those who do not look/act/think like they do.
So when will this cycle of hate stop? When will humanity finally come to accept others? My own pessimistic view is that we never will. After thousands of years of civilization, we are in the exact same place we have always been. We still war amongst ourselves. We still are territorial and greedy beings. We still hold the "us versus them" mentality. We are still locked in "me me me" mode. We have experienced advances in medicine, in technology, in mathematics. Where are the advances in self? In enlightenment? In humanity?
And so, we see kids beaten to death on the way home from school because they are not the right color. We see police abusing their authority as they crash through gay clubs, pounding on patrons heedlessly and needlessly because they can. We see the same ignorance over and over again, year after year, century and century. It seems to me that if mankind was going to learn to rise above our baser instincts, we would have done so by now.
It reminds me somewhat of the movie The Forbidden Planet. In this film, we are introduced to an extinct race known as the Krell, a race of enlightened, peaceful, and vastly intelligent people. We discover in the film that the Krell disappeared one night, all of them killed. You see, they had invented a machine that allowed them to amplify their thoughts, have their imaginations brought into reality through this miraculous device. Unfortunately, despite their advancement and their peaceful natures, they all still contended with their ids, that deep dark bit of the psyche that is selfish and hateful and animalistic. As the Krell slept, the machine read their darkest thoughts and manifested them into reality, the resulting ugliness killing them all.
That is mankind. Despite our towers, our vaccines, and our outlet malls, there is still a lot of darkness in each of us. Some hide it better than others, but it is there. And it shall always be so.
