today i was thinking about what seems to be this inherent human need - both collectively and individually - to blame someone. we have to make an enemy.
think the japanese internment camps of wwii, or the popular outrage of the majority of the american population against arab americans in the wake of september 11, 2001. our fear creates a gaping hole, a hole that can only be filled by a scapegoat - and who better than the minority, the weak, the already-not-liked?
fear is a vulnerable thing. rather than feeling fear, most people channel it to other avenues of emotion, like anger or frustration or sadness. and the only way to abate the anger is to become angry at someone - to treat them terribly, to discriminate against them, to punish them in some way until our own hearts somehow feel like justice has been done. but oftentimes, this creates more enemies than we had in the first place.
perhaps our view of justice has become warped. perhaps hatred, the child of rage, should have no place in matters of just and unjust. but it seems that hatred is all we know - and if we can just have someone to hate, it makes it easier to cope with the pain and fear.
i wonder, though, how it would be were the roles reversed, how it would be if we had a taste of what it was like to be the enemy, to be hated, for absolutely no reason at all. how would it be if we were the ones feared, and were labeled “cannot be trusted?” how would it be if people looked at us and saw only the color of our skin, or our religion, and automatically assumed we were dangerous, and there was nothing we could do about it?
maybe this change needs to play out on the individual level first before it can become widespread, nationwide. i hope that, eventually, this need to have an enemy will be replaced by a desire to understand, even appreciate, one another.
