I Just Don't Care (FD5)

Alexander Lau

12 Aug. 2011

FD5

I Just Don’t Care

We live in a world full of hate. Our hate toward someone could be as petty as the way they dress to something more serious as their race. Whatever our reason to hate is, they do not justify committing crimes against other people. Hate is in all of us. We are human beings after all. And as human beings, we have emotions; anger, sadness, happiness, etc. Hate is one of those emotions. We hate because we care about ourselves and others. [Thesis] Emotions are the foundation to our hate, so the best solution to ridding this world of hate is to rid the world of emotions. [Thesis]

Hate crimes are acts of violence, either verbally, visually, or physically toward another person due to differences in human characteristics. Those human characteristics could be race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Like it or not, we are all capable of committing hate crimes or being a victim of a hate crime. The only reason why we haven’t is because the emotions inside of us weren’t strong enough to make us care.

Take for example, Mel Gibson and his run in with a sheriff’s deputy for a DUI. During his arrest, Mel Gibson said, “This is not about a film, nor is it about artistic license,” then goes on to say, “This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. It’s about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.” Mel Gibson isn’t wrong; our world has gone mad, mad with emotions. We live in a world where we must think carefully as to the words we use as not to offend other people due to their nationality, gender, religion, or other reasons. What Gibson said was wrong, but only because the Jewish community cared about being hurt by his words.

In the world we live in today, anything we say could be taken out of context. Accidentally blurting out a word like “gay” could be interpreted as “I hate homosexuals.” The gay community seems to care a lot about the usage of such words. But, those same people that cry out for justice are in their own circle allowed to use the word and not be chastised. The gay community is but one example of people caring too much and being overzealous about being hurt. The same could be said about blacks and the word “nigger,” and Chinese being called “chinks”. There are many more examples, but all are the same. All those words are meant to be offensive so to hurt people’s feelings, which make us care if the word is used against us or others because no likes being hurt.

However, words, gestures, and physical attacks aren’t the culprit here. The source of hate crimes are emotions within individual people. Everyone has their own reason to hate on another. Some feel threatened by others due to an incident. They then act out aggressions toward those individuals or groups. In an article, Tori DeAngelis wrote, “When people face a crisis, they often revert to an unfortunate human tendency: to protect their own while finding a scapegoat to blame the problem on.” For example, the day the World Trade Center towers fell due to terrorist attacks. Americans were informed the terrorist were from the middle-east. People were already suspicious and somewhat afraid of middle-eastern people, but after the WTC towers went down, those emotions that were kept in check become overwhelming for some. Those people began to act on their emotions, which brought fear to those of middle-eastern heritage or even looked middle-eastern. But, fear is just one reason people do what they do.

Fear isn’t the only emotion that leads people to commit hate crimes. Some people find joy in hurting others. The fear they bring to their victims is fun and leaves a good feeling within them. Others feel some sort of pride when they commit hate crimes against others. Like white supremacists, and the pride they feel defending their ethnicity. Also, the feeling of power can be quite addicting to some people. Like bullies, they thrive on creating fear in others because they can. There isn’t just one emotion that causes hate crimes. Every emotion a human being can exude could trigger a hate crime.

Of course ridding people of their emotions is a wild idea. There is no way to do erase emotions from a person other than to may be operator on their brain. But, as long as we have emotions, we as human being will continue to hate others that are not like us. Also, even though emotions are what triggers hate crimes, there are just too many types. One solution to one emotions or individual won’t work for another. Some might object to my proposal, but as logical thinking minds, there is no way to rid this world of hate with conventional means. If a religion happens to disappear, there is still gender to feed our hate. There will always be race issues and the feeling of being different.

I was born and raised in Hawaii. I’m a first generation American-Chinese. My community, school and neighborhood, was largely Asians. Some would think hate crimes wouldn’t happen because of whom I am and the neighborhood I lived in, but that isn’t true. All Asians are stereotyped as being smart. Being smart was one trait I lacked from then to now. Not to say I was stupid, but I definitely wasn’t on par with the other Asian students ever since elementary. Whenever some people in class looked at me, they always assumed I was smart and asked if they could copy my homework. Sometimes I would refuse and the persistent ones would try to take it from me. This happened quite often throughout high school. This probably isn’t your typical instance of a “hate crime,” but I sure felt discriminated because I was Asian. Even to this day, when people tell me I’m smart, I feel like they are mocking me.

Emotions can be powerful; enough so to commit crimes, such as hate crimes. Hate crimes are attacks on individuals or groups based on their race, gender, religion, and sexuality. Everyone is capable of committing a hate crime. All it takes is one emotion to run wild and a target to let out that emotion out at. In order to stop hate crimes we must eliminate the cause of all this hate, which are our emotions. Once we are able to rid ourselves of emotions we will care for nothing and no one, which will essentially rid ourselves of hate and hate crimes.

Works Cited

DeAngelis, Tori. “Understanding and Preventing Hate Crimes.” Monitor on Psychology 32.10 10 Nov. 2001. 12 Aug. 2011 [http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov01/hatecrimes.html].

“Gibson: ‘I Am Not an Anti-Semite.’” CNN.com. 2 Aug. 2006. 12 Aug. 2011 [http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/01/gibson.dui/index.html].