Teaching hate

In my neighborhood there is a house with a notorious resident.  He's politically active and a huge supporter of gun ownership rights and Donald Trump.  He's been in the news several times, and if anyone in the neighborhood missed those stories, it's easy to tell his political affiliations from his lawn signs, which range from standard endorsement signs to signs that seem deliberately intended to provoke, intimidate, or flat-out scare those passing by with their messages.  If the intent of the signs truly is to intimidate, it seems to work.  It feels like the house was lifted from the Wild West (and plopped into the middle of a highly diverse, liberal New York City neighborhood).  Everyone in the neighborhood knows the house, and most people cross the street to the other side when walking by -- including me.

This post, however, is not about that resident.  This post is about hypocrisy and the disgusting, highly disturbing results that occur when we teach children to hate, even if we think we're doing it for the right reasons.

That house has a dog.  If you are to believe the signs, the dog is a vicious attack dog and will kill you if you trespass.  In actuality, the dog could be the biggest cuddlebug ever.  I rarely actually see the dog out, and when he is, my fear of him is more from the signs and what he might be trained to do than from his actual behavior.  He watches me and barks -- just like any dog.  He's caged and only has the use of a small portion of the lawn, so despite the threats, he wouldn't actually be able to kill a passerby unless someone let him out -- but I've never seen him even lunge at the fence or growl or bare his teeth.  There are plenty of dogs I've walked by who have displayed far more aggressive behavior.

The other day I walked by at a time when the dog was out in his cage.  As usual, I crossed the street.  There was also a field trip of children passing by the house, accompanied by several adults.  And what I saw was revolting.  The children, only perhaps four or five years old and still on leashes tied to each other, were taunting and yelling at the dog, calling him names -- and the adults stopped the group's progress on the sidewalk and just allowed them to do it.  The dog paced in his cage, panting, clearly distressed, not barking or displaying any aggressive behavior as the children all yelled at him and waved their arms.

I'm sure most of the children know the house and have been taught to hate its resident.  Clearly the supervising adults hate him.  I'm going to go out on a very small limb and assume they hate him because they see the politician he supports as being full of hate.  And so they respond by... teaching their children to hate and bully?  Does leading five-year-olds to hate and bully an innocent dog make things better?  Is teaching children to hate and bully going to fix a world with too much hate?  I don't think the parents of those children consciously taught their children that it's okay to yell and torment an innocent being... and yet, something about how they speak about politics at home has, rather than teaching their children about tolerance and acceptance and open-mindeness and compassion, taught them to target and bully those whom they see as representing something they hate -- even when that representative is an innocent dog.  The dog isn't political.  The dog didn't choose who his owner is.  The dog is a dog.

Fortunately, a woman stepped out from the house and very calmly silenced the children by saying with a gentle but firm voice, "Don't call him names.  He has feelings.  You're hurting his feelings.  Do you like when people speak to you that way?  Do you think you would enjoy being treated like that?"  When several children shook their heads no, she went on, "Then why would you treat him that way?  Why would you intentionally hurt his feelings?  You're hurting him. That's not nice.  Treat him with respect, just like you want to be treated."

I couldn't see the faces of the adults supervising the children, but I hope they were as shamed by her words as the children were.

The hypocrisy of seeing children verbally and emotionally abuse an animal because the adults in their lives want more compassion and tolerance from our leader is astounding.  When is hate productive?  What does it accomplish?  I don't know what words of hate it takes -- or how many days of hearing those words it takes -- for twenty five-year-olds to yell at a helpless dog, but I do know that seeing that display of hate was far scarier to me than the one on display on the resident's lawn.