A Root of the Problem

   C is a member of a few local Facebook groups. He likes to post positive messages in these groups because sometimes, quite frankly, the commenting can get pretty negative. A few days ago he shared a post about respecting the opinions of others and not humiliating those with whom you do not agree.  The post reads, "It's okay to have an opinion. It's ok to disagree with someone else's opinion. It's not okay to humiliate someone because they don't think the same as you do. Show some respect. Society needs more of it." Then he sat back to see what kind of response he would get.
   Everyone reacted positively to the post.  Although to be honest I'm not sure if that means anything. Many times people just surf through Facebook and hit "like" without really reading what they are liking.Several also made a comment agreeing with the statements.
   One guy commenting that he was tempted to make some sort of flippant remark after seeing the positive reactions and positive comments, but that he simply couldn't because it was nice to see.
  C shared the same post on another community Facebook group. The vast majority of comments were positive but there was one that was rather jarring. The commenter agreed with most of the statement, but wrote that people who held stupid opinions deserved his mockery.
   When C showed me this, I shivered and not because I was cold. This kind of attitude scares me. It scares me because in my eyes this is a root of some of the challenges in our society today.
   The belief that certain groups do not deserve to be treated well because they hold beliefs that are in opposition to, are considered stupid or are different from another group is something that should frighten us more than anything else.
   I'm sure some of you are thinking that I'm overreacting, but hear me out. It's a very short step from mocking someone with a difference of opinion to thinking of them as not human for having that opinion. It's another short step from denying humanity for having a different opinion to denying humanity because a groups looks, acts, believes or prays differently than you do. It is a slippery, dangerous slope.
   I believe that the heart of some of the most horrific crimes against human being in our history stems from thinking of a group as not human and not worthy of equal treatment. African Americans were enslaved because the opinion was that those with dark skins were not human and therefore not deserving of human rights or humane treatment. Jews, Poles, Soviets, Gypsies, disabled people and others of various nationalities were experimented on and exterminated in death camps in Nazi Germany because their humanity had been stripped away. The Nazis considered these groups to be pollutants in their society.
   The above  examples are the most extreme instances of what can happen when we start to believe that others are not worthy of being thought human. There are many more common examples in our day. They are bullying, sexual harassment, sexual crimes, and discrimination to name a few.
   I believe that if you want to know why someone would shoot worshippers in Pittsburgh and  Charleston, event attendees in Las Vegas and Orlando and students in schools, you will find that the shooters all had this underlying belief that those they were shooting at were nothing but targets to put down. Not human.
   There is a quote from the movie 'The American President' ,that is very apt for our times. "America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say 'You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, and who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." Although this quote is about free speech, you can stretch it to include respectful treatment of others.
   We can do this. We can be respectful. We can agree to disagree. We don't need to stand by while our society devolves into a hundred angry hate groups. "It's okay to have an opinion. It's ok to disagree with someone else's opinion. It's not okay to humiliate someone because they don't think the same as you do. Show some respect. Society needs more of it."