Yesterday, I tweeted a link about the 26 Moments that Restored Our Faith in Humanity this Year on my Twitter page. It was retweeted twice.
Today, someone I follow tweeted an article about a certain religious group who I will not name and their plans the picket the funerals of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. It's been up for a little less than a day and it's already been retweeted 30 times.
An interesting discussion sparked about the concept of hate groups, what makes a hate group, and what, precisely, we can do about them under the veil of the First Amendment. The fact of the matter is, the First Amendment exists to protect the people of this country from the stifling hand of the government. It means you can say what you believe without the threat of censorship or incarceration.
It does not, however, mean that other people have to listen.
After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, I turned on a talk show and found them interviewing members of aforementioned group. Over 200,000 people dead and countless of lives and families destroyed, and this talk show had reached out to a small group of religious zealots who have never suffered a day in their life under the safe haven of the American mid-west to come and share their opinion about it. And an entire audience showed up to listen.
Even after I turned it off I figured it was a phase; a sick oddity borne from the sheltered womb of a society nurtured by full stomachs and empty minds. I imagined it would fade into obscurity, after this group said their piece and people figured out their game.
And here we are, eight years later, and they are still talking. And we are still listening.
I won't go as far to lay complete blame on the media, although I think that they have sifted their fare share of this burden to everyone else. Everyone who works in this industry, whether they will admit it or not, knows that hate sells. Hate is a wonderful commodity. It's cheap to obtain and easy to maintain. It is easily riled and even more easily fed. It travels on the inertia of its very own existence. Hate makes for fantastic ratings.
Right now, there are 27 families, friends and neighbors mourning the loss of their children, their sisters and their brothers - people they loved. Dawn, Mary, Lauren, Victoria, Olivia, Emilie, Rachel, Anne, Charlotte, Daniel, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Anne Marie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Avielle, Benjamin, and Allison. 27 people who will never wake up to see another sunrise, who will never eat another pancake, who will never watch television again or walk their dog or sing a song, ever again. 27 names.
When you think about Friday, how many of those names come to mind? Because not many did for me. I had to look most of them up.
But I bet almost everyone reading this knew the name of the "religious group" I referenced without even blinking.
The good people do in this world - Dawn, who oversaw the installation of a new security system at the school, or six year-old Emilie who was a shining star to her little sisters - they don't get the retweets. The mothers of children with mental illnesses who fear for their lives when their children get lost in the system; the children who walk door to door for hours asking for pennies for the March of Dimes; the woman I know who busted her butt collecting bottlecaps from around the country to help raise money to pay for a funeral when a child she taught died in a car crash; the people you and I know who do a little good in this world one moment at a time; not many people listen to them. We interview religious nutjobs on national television who do nothing more for this world than teach their children how to hate.
We have in our own hands a powerful tool. The power to listen is a beautiful thing. It gives us perspective, it gives us experience. It helps to nurture our understanding of the world and helps us develop our own opinions. It's the reason we should listen to what people have to say, and it's why the First Amendment exists.
Our Constitution allows the right for every single person in this country to have a voice. It does not, however, give them a right to an audience.
Stop following these people on Twitter, please. Stop watching them on television. Stop listening to them on radio shows. They've said what they believe, over and over again and we've heard it now. We know and there is no reason to listen anymore. My hope is that when the media covers the funerals of the Sandy Hook Elementary School victims - which I am sure it will - their concentration will be on the people who will no doubt show up to block the spews of rancid hate with a human wall. People who will fly and drive across the country, taking time away from their own families during the holiday season to do whatever they can to cushion the grief of other suffering families. Those people are driven out of love, not hate, and their voices are worth listening to.
Hate is a cheap commodity. Love is not. Love comes with hurt. Love is something people shy away from because it isn't always as wonderful as it sounds. Love is an investment. And it's worth every penny.
I've heard the phrase "I have lost all faith in humanity" too many times in the last three days. If you really feel that way, I think you aren't listening hard enough.
Take a break from the horrors of this world and give love a listen. I think you'll like what it has to say.
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