Foolish hate

The Gantt Report

Foolish hate

By Lucius Gantt

Unfortunately, many children at one time or another say they hate one or both of their parents.

This behavior is unacceptable but understandable for toddlers, adolescents and even in immature teenagers.

Maybe, mama told you not to eat cookies and candy and preferred that you ate fruits and vegetables. Perhaps, daddy told you to be in the house by the time the street lights came on while the other kids were running the street late into the night. Both parents could have told you that you were too young to wear makeup or to turn off the cartoons and get ready for Sunday school.

And as a youth, you told them, or thought about telling them, you hated one or both parents.

When you become grown, reach your eighteenth birthday and are old enough to vote, join the military, start families and have babies. You can call yourself an adult and you should know that hatred is not the greatest thing to have.

We all should have love in our hearts! Everyone should let go and get rid of any hatred you have.

If Native Americans can forgive land thieves, colonizers from foreign shores and genocidal cowboys, you should be able to stop the hatred and forgive too.

If parents can forgive the killer and killers of their children, then you should be able to forgive also.

If African Americans can live side by side and not hate the offspring of bigots, racists and white supremacists that enslaved their ancestors, stole their music, culture, religion, freedom and happiness, you ought to be able to do away with your continued hatred, if that is what you have.

You see, most people hate people that they disagree with or they hate people they feel has made a terrible mistake.

But people that disagree about one thing can be in total agreement with you about something else. And people that made a mistake can apologize to you and atone in some way and prove to you whatever the mistake was it will never be repeated!

So why do some people hate forever and pass their hatred on to any and everybody else too weak to make their own decisions about love and hate?

One reason is haters learn how to hate and who to hate at home. If ma-ma, daddy, sister and/or brother hate someone, they may suggest to a person that can’t make their own decisions about love to hate what they hate.

Another reason people hate and hate is pride. Once you tell everybody that you hate someone, you can’t, in your mind, turn around the next day, or even the next year, and say now, I love you.

What you do is try and explain the hatred. You look for whatever you can to justify the hatred. Instead of looking for positive change in a person, haters look for. “I told you he was no good” moments.

You’ll say, “Daddy cheated on mama” even though you don’t know every detail about your parent’s relationship. You don’t know if it was an open relationship and you don’t know if mama did her own share of creeping and side sleeping.

You’ll say, “I hate the President” even though all Presidents are the same in one way or many ways and just have different styles in how they govern and even though you were broke, for instance, under one Presidential term, you were just as broke while another person was President.

At the end of the day, hatred will get you nowhere.

The best thing a religious person that practices any religious faith can do is love God and love their neighbors.

If you disagree with someone or don’t like the choices made by someone, you can still be pleasant to them even if you be pleasant from a distance.

Usually, the person you hate doesn’t give a damn about how you feel; they just go on with their lives!

Hatred for a family member, a former friend, a coworker or business associate does not hurt the hated. Hatred hurts the person doing the hating the most.

Jesus forgave the people that spit on him, beat him and nailed him to the cross on purpose and you want to hate someone for a selfish reason.

Look at yourself. What kind of foolish hater are you?  (Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” onAmazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net. And, if you want to, “Like” The Gantt Report page on Facebook.)