From Pine View Farm

Hate Is Not an “Illness.” It’s Hate. 0

At The Roanoke Times, Maurice S. Fisher explains the differences. Here’s a bit (emphasis added):

. . . hate is not a mental illness. Hate is learned and it’s behavioral manifestations of bigotry and prejudice are socialized in people when they are young by the adults who reared them. To be sure, inculcating hate in young children has the effect of weakening their minds. For example, weak-minded people are susceptible to white supremacist ideology because it has the power to make these individuals feel less worthless and inadequate. Historically, white supremacy has been attractive to disenfranchised white men, because it gives them a cause to rally around. Said differently, hate is a family value for many — the in-group is solidified by hating the out-group. There is no biological basis for hate; it, too, is learned.

I don’t think the demarcation is quite as sharp as Mr. Fisher makes it. Nevertheless this is a newspaper column, not a scholarly work, and he has a point.

Hate may sometimes be an outgrowth of illness, but it is also its own thing with its own dynamic. If hate is an illness, almost the entirety of the white South has been mentally ill and needing to be put in a “home” since 1619.

In related news, Leonard Pitts, Jr., takes down those who would pretend that Dylan Roof was not motivated by pure racism.

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