“No hate, no violence,” a new ideology, is a movement with many different aspects to it. By examining how and why we hate, we might start ridding ourselves of it.
Ninety percent of the time, hate is what we think. The other 10 percent of the time, we hate because of the actions of somebody else. If we get cut off in traffic on the highway and we go into a road rage, it’s usually for all the wrong reasons. Most drivers don’t cut us off on purpose. Of course, on occasion, somebody will force themselves in front of us, but if we really think about what road rage costs us personally, we might be inclined to rethink the situation so that the rage goes away.
Have you ever cut anybody off in traffic? Have you ever been honked at?
Just like us, other drivers feel entitled to road rage because of something we’ve done in traffic.
Think about that for a minute. We believe that we can get rid of or minimize hate in the world – or slow it down – by getting people to think about how they react to certain situations. When we get those hateful feelings, what do we do about them? Hate can far too easily rise to a level of violence.
HATEFUL IDEOLOGIES
Think is about ISIS. They are motivated by a hateful ideology. They hate other religions and Americans more than enough to want to perpetrate extreme violence. They hate Catholics, Jews – everybody who is not a part of their minority ideology. This is terrorist thinking, not Muslim’s actual beliefs.
The problem is that good Muslims have difficulty rising up against bad Muslims. They’re afraid of them just like people are of dictators and their armies, and they are not united against them. If the majority of Muslims came out against radical Muslims, they would eliminate them. There are historical examples. Consider what Christians did during the Crusades when they eliminated people doing the wrong thing. In the beginning, the Crusades might have been defensible and might have had some merit. But later, they became land grabs for kings and lords and whoever else wanted to start a war by call it a “crusade” and stealing land from the people. That’s what’s happened with the Muslim religion: The radicals have taken over the limelight, using religion as the justification.
But it’s not all Muslims, any more than pedophile priests represent the whole Catholic Church. A small percentage – 2 percent or 3 percent – are bad actors, and the church is ridding itself of these people. (The Catholic Church helps more people in the world – including those who are not Catholic, who need help, who are hungry and need to be fed and sheltered – than all other religions combined. Let’s give credit where it is due.)
As for Muslims, we have to reduce the influence of the bad actors. The Muslim religion can educate them about the right thing to do. And as a society, we need to help them become employed and help to improve the standard of living in Muslim countries, because radical ideologues prey on poor and helpless people who see no future for themselves. We can’t change the minds of the people until we eradicate the highest level possible of bad actors.
BAD ACTORS
Let’s think positively. The glass is half- or three-quarters full in the world. And in the United States, it’s at least that full – or even more – for most people, because we generally do the right thing, or at least mean to. We have made mistakes, for sure. But do Americans have a general moral compass? I think so. And we can help guide those who have strayed back into the fold so that they can do good work in and for all societies.
Still, even in the United States, there are racist activists who promote a racist ideology. What needs to happen is for people to go into struggling communities and help people find employment and a better attitude toward life.
NFL players could be more effective in this regard. We need solutions. We know the problems. Help more minorities become cops, and look for the good in most of them, rather than judge everyone generally, to help balance the issues as they see them.
We need to help people get jobs. It’s true that many people out there don’t want jobs and want to live off the government, their neighbors and taxpayers. That’s wrong, and it sets a very bad example for their families and for their children.
One thing we do not talk about in this country – and this is extremely disappointing to those of us who are philanthropists – is poor people. We talk about the middle-income people making more money. We’ll talk about how the rich are going to get richer. We’ll talk about the economy getting better and lower taxes and the rich making a lot more money and paying more taxes – which is what we want; if the rich get richer, the middle class automatically makes more money, and the poor can be uplifted by the rich and those with middle incomes helping them. But that has to happen.
I pray that the rich will help the poor people uplift themselves by being directly involved in how and to whom they give their money; don’t just donate money to Goodwill or to an organization that just feeds and helps clothe hope. Donate to people who work to show the lower-income people a better way of life so they can take care of themselves. That’s what we need to do, and we should take a stronger approach to that type of assistance.
What if a poor person only has to work two hours a day to have food and shelter? This is doing something, and that’s a good start. It doesn’t have to be an eight-hour day or a full-time job to begin with. They can start small and work their way up to what they want to do and where they want to be. Private organizations and government can provide jobs for somebody who is on welfare for two days out of the week, helping them get to know success and to feel a sense of accomplishment. The rich can help fund private organizations that promote uplifting the poor.
There’s always risk when it comes to this type of program. But risk is how we built this country.
We need to employ minorities. If that’s considered “preferential treatment,” who cares? The more we hire, the less racism there will be because it will make everybody’s life better. If a minority applicant has only 75 percent of a particular job’s requirements, then hire them for less and teach them the other 25 percent.
Generally, a lack of qualifications has nothing to do with education; it only has to do with attitude. Hire people with the right attitude and help them with whatever else they need. Certainly, as is true with all people, there are some minorities who have bad attitudes, but some have come by it naturally due to an inheritance of many generations of hateful thinking. But many generations later, it’s time for people to get on with their lives. The most successful minorities in this country come from this same type of family structure. Why are some successful and others are not?
It has a lot to do with attitude.
INTERNSHIPS
Much meaningful work can be found through the use of internships. Let’s endorse the hiring of interns anywhere and everywhere we possibly can – from picking up garbage to data input and processing. That will take a lot of kids off the street and will help them learn about work ethics and business. And if a company wants to pay its interns, that’s fine. Internships could take millions of kids off the street in the evening so they don’t end up in gangs.
REWARDING COMPANIES
We should give awards to the top 10 companies in each community, city and state, as well as at the federal level, that hire more minorities than anyone else. Let’s give them this recognition. And let’s not forget: Minorities are a huge market. If companies do these things, then minorities will support these companies. It will help all American businesses.
I believe in loving the minority communities of the world. We need to help them, but they definitely have to help themselves, too. Until a person has sought multiple job opportunities, they don’t have the right to say they can’t find a job. (Looking for work once or twice, or even five times, is just not enough.) Successful applicants know they have to go to many job interviews before finding a job – and even then, it might not necessarily be a job they like.
