Listening to pain instead of responding to hate

[MedleyMisty]

I wanted to expand on a post I made in the global warming thread, since it's not getting replied to while my shorter and snarkier posts on the class prejudice showing its face here lately are.

I hate to say it, but I was thinking today that DU should probably be self-selected to be some of the most open-minded and non-prejudiced people in the US.

And yet look at how fast we are to draw the lines and hate on each other instead of listening. For instance, today my ignore list has been growing with the hate from both sides of the class divide. And heck, I have to sit on my fingers to keep from being snarky as much as I want because actually listening to people who are striking out in pain is hard, especially if you see them as striking out against you. It takes more strength than most people have to say, "I hear your pain." and listen without judging to someone who is using a group you belong to as a scapegoat for their problems. Especially when your group is the one not in power and institutionally oppressed by the other group.

Although maybe it's just as hard when your group is doing the oppressing - only oppressor group I belong to is white, and maybe because everything but my skin pigments is against me I don't have a problem listening to the anger of people whose skin pigments are against them. But I imagine that if I was born into the world a rich white man I might have a problem with understanding why everyone seemed to hate me so much for stuff that didn't seem to really be my fault and I probably would strike right back at them in pain and fear.

I'm not saying that anyone has to do this. It's just a suggestion, and you can take it or leave it. I do hope it makes a few people think, though.

The next time you read a comment that hates on a group that you identify with, think for a minute before you respond. I know it's hard. I'm just now even starting to think that I should do this and it'll probably be decades before I'm really good at it.

In all likelihood, the person slamming your group is in pain and is just taking that pain out on the wrong target. Believe me, I know it seems like they personally hate you. But really they don't even know you. They just know that giving their pain a name and putting it outside them where they can fight it and abuse it makes them feel better.

We talk a lot on here about hatred and fear of the Other. I think that really the Other is our shadow, projected on to other people.

To relate this to the recent threads - people who are close to what's going on in California are scared and worried and upset and in pain. They can't lash out at the fire. The fire just burns and doesn't really care what they think. But when they come here and see someone posting about rich people deserving it, that's something that they can fight.

And on the other side, poverty is constant pain. Or if the person is a dishonest troll and isn't actually poor - well, they obviously have some severe mental and emotional problems that give them pain. And I know when I was working at Arby's that I would have given anything to have my house burn down if in return I could have enough money and opportunities so that I wouldn't have to go back to Arby's. I only got through Arby's because I knew where the extra box cutter blades were stored - I usually take my pain out on myself. And if my husband hadn't let me quit when he did, I'd probably have killed myself within months because death was better than Arby's.

And so when people suffering from that pain see something like a house they could never afford no matter how much they worked in flames on the news, that serves as an anchor point for their misery and pain. They can attach it to that burning house and unload all that pain on it.

Neither side sees the people on the other side as real or as individuals. And that goes for pretty much all group conflicts ever, I'd imagine.

I think that maybe we should start trying to see other people as real and as having just as much worth and right to their emotions as we have.

It's probably impossible for everyone to stop categorizing the rest of the species into groups and projecting stuff on to those groups. But maybe if we're at least aware that we're doing it we can try to control it and if we're aware that other people are doing it we won't take it so personally when they insult our groups and won't hurry so much to respond to hate with hate.

Honestly I've always thought of myself as Super Equality Girl, never prejudiced against anyone and never dumping on an entire group and always seeing all six and a half billion humans as individuals with worth equal to mine. I was bullshitting myself. It's hard to recognize that.

And this won't be easy and I'm going to mess up a lot and I don't know if I ever will be Super Equality Girl, but from now on I'm really going to try to listen to the pain before reacting with outrage to the hate. I already know it'll be impossible to do that with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. But maybe if I start here on DU and then expand it to the rest of the net and then to prejudiced hateful people I meet in real life, who knows? Maybe one day I will get good enough at it to apply even to those who seem to be entirely composed of creamy nougat hate.

Sorry for the long post, but if you got this far maybe I made you think, and that's good enough for me. :)