Hate is generally seen as a powerful negative emotion held by an individual. While the hatred held by individuals is important, its collective nature is of larger social concern.

At the collective level, hate requires an ideology or shared belief system. Hate takes on a complex and multilevel existence which shapes the identity of both the haters and the hated.

Hate ideologies involve at heart, the objectification of the hated. The hated group is portrayed and defined in such a way as to make them at best inferior humans and at worst totally inhuman. Evil (in various forms), and threat (on a variety of levels) is attributed to the group. Hence, on one side of the curent situation we have America as the Great Satan, and on the U.S. side the terrorists, the Taliban, and countless others as being Evil incarnate. The attacks of the 11th are depicted as attacks on “our way of life,” and attacks on civilization as a whole. Meaning by implication that the people who are “against us” in this war are both the epitome of evil and uncivilized (or less than human). Terminology such as “smoke them out of their holes” links them closer to the animal than to the human.

The intensity of belief involved in collective hatred generally disallows any kind of equality or peaceful coexistence between the groups. Hate ideology often leads to violence;  either as part of a group action, or by what are termed “lone wolves” - those who adhere to the beliefs of the group, but act independently of the group.

Hate violence is different from individual violence in that the choice of target is specifically selected to send a message to the target group. In this way, hate violence and terrorism are indistinguishable. The intent is to cause fear.

Hate violence is an expression of power and control. If the hate ideology is grounded within the broader cultural values (for example U.S. white supremacy is grounded in the mainstream culture) then it serves the direct purpose of exerting social control. In other words, putting people back in their socially determined “place.” In fact, the hate expressed by the white supremacy movement is directly based in the long time institutionialized discrimination and hate violence of the U.S. government (which at those times had broad Euro-American support).
Examples of institutionalized discrimination include:
- not allowing anyone who was not “white” to become a citizen of the United States
- slavery
- denial of autonomy to Native American tribes
- withholding the vote from women and people of color
- anti non-European immigration legislation
- segregation
- racial profiling
Examples of institutionalized hate violence include:
- genocidal policies against Native American tribes
- rounding up of Mexicans during Operation Wet Back
- placement of Japanese Americans in internment camps
- the “rule of thumb” which allowed husbands to beat their wives as long as the implement used was smaller around than the man’s thumb
- currently, mass trials of undocumented (latin) immigrants for deportation and denial of asylum status to a variety of groups
- the recently passed USA Act 2001 (senate) and Patriot Act 2001 (congress) which abridges the rights of both immigrants and those who are citizens deemed to be a possible “threat” to the US

It is important to note that hate and hate violence can be institutionalized and to offer the examples in order to understand the public and official reaction to the events of September 11th. Immediately, there was a surge of patriotism in the United States, and that patriotism in the US is frequently linked to white racism because of a cultural ideology of hate. There is “us”, white americans and “them”. For much of the history “American” and “White American” have been virtually indistinguishable. On the public level we have seen a dramatic rise in attacks against those who are perceived to be Muslim or Middle-Eastern. This has certainly been fueled by national policy, rhetoric, and activity. In President Bush creating this good vs evil dichotomy, and characterizing those who are evil (especially bin Laden, the al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Islamic extremeists) as barbarians or animals, it links to and reinforces, already existing cultural stereotypes. Thereby reinforcing mainstream US ideology about race (in general) and “Arabs” (in particular) in the process. In fact, we are being directed to hate “those people”.

This is somehow both frightening and perverted. From the love and compassion-based grief in response to the loss of people at the WTC, Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, there is a deliberate manipulation to shift that to hate and revenge. Slogans such as “America strikes back” and soldiers writing on missels and bombs destined for Afghanistan such things as “this is from New York” depict a patriotism not based in pride of country, but in revenge and hatred.

But what about those who made the attacks of September 11th. Was that hate violence? Or what of the al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other groups - is that hate violence? Or what of the anti-bombing / anti-American protests - is that hate violence?

Certainly, those involved in the attacks of the 11th hated the United States with tremendous passion based in an ideology of hatred of the United States. Certainly, their acts were violent. But whether they were acts of war or acts of terrorism, is in part a question of perspective. If it was terrorism, we responded with a war. Is war a form of hate violence and terrorism? We could certainly argue that it can be.

What has the U.S. done? We have been bombing almost around the clock for the last nine days. Many civilians have lost their lives (even though we say we are not at war with the people of Afghanistan). We have issued threats to the world that they are either “with us” in this struggle, or we will go after them as we have gone after Afghanistan.

Certainly the recent events are triggering a number of other events - from protests to riots - and the number of dead are rising. Dead from police attempting to quell anti-American demonstrations (for example in Pakistan, Egypt, and Indonesia) to riots such as occurred between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria where over 200 people are dead after 2 days of violence.

Aside from the increase in hate activity in the US and increased membership in supremacist groups in the US, we are having our own terrorist activities going on. Most specifically the anthrax letters and the fear of biological or chemical terrorism. Many people assume that the anthrax letters must be being carried out by the same extremists who were involved in the attacks of the 11th, but it is equally possible that this is a white supremacist-based series of actions. Certainly, our fear of attack is being manipulated and enhanced to engender support of stringent control measures which challenges the beliefs in freedom and democracy that we keep saying people have fought and died for.

If hate violence is about power and control, we need to be very careful about our responses. Fear is a powerful motivator, and hate is a genie that is difficult to put back in the bottle. And we know from long human experience that violence begets violence - not peace.

So how do we move individuals and groups away from an ideology of hate?

1. Challenging the belief system that underlies it and seeking information
2. Reverse the objectification - make the hated fully human again
3. Expanding our personal circles and trying to understand a variety of perspectives. (Understanding does not mean agreeing with).
4. Refusing to be coopted by hate or fear