Conditioned…

By Joyce Davis

None of us are born alone. We have family units that teach us the ropes of being human. I have had some knockdown drag out fights with my siblings and no matter how much hatred I might have felt at the time I was instructed to get over it and hug and make up. This is what most of us are taught in our younger years. Then at some point we enter the arena of testing what we have learned when we go to school and meet other children. I have found that if you do not live with a person, the hug and makeup approach can be optional.

There is no obligation to get along because we do not live in the same household. We can ignore whomever irritates us by not speaking with them. Teachers try their best to combat this by making students makeup or sit together until you are friends again. Sometimes it works out. This is usually the grade school approach. Things change when you hit high school.

Enter in high school. This is the first place I can remember where I found out about rivals. I remember being in middle school and having a conversation with a friend and she asked me which high school I was going to? We were going to separate high schools that were rivals. This girl that was once my friend would now be my rival. Sadly, we did not keep in touch after middle school. I expressly remember the pep rallies where we cheered for our teams and found terrible names for our rivals. We were taught to dislike people we may have once liked and some we never knew at all, but it was okay to dislike or have hatred for them because they went to a rival school.

We have been conditioned that it is ok to dislike someone that is not on your same team. I think of many times in history where futbol, or football games end in a big brawl of people who do not know each other yet find it necessary to fight someone over a game they did not play. I don’t understand it. Some blame the alcohol, but I blame the rivalry. Conditioning doesn’t just start with high school rivals but some of us take in what we see on TV. We see action stars like Charles Bronson movie characters go on murder sprees but because the people that are being killed have been deemed enemies or criminals it makes it okay to kill them.

These are the things I think about when I look at today’s politics. I often ask myself why it is okay for people to hate each other so much? Then I realize it is a part of our conditioning growing up. If they are not family, then it is okay to hate someone just as long as you give yourself a good reason. As a Black American, this is one of those things we fight against. TV programs have portrayed us as thugs, drug dealers, and murderous, dangerous people.

In the last two years that message came directly from the White House against BLM. I know that Black Lives Matter protesters were not just black people but Trump’s message that Black Lives Matter is hate speech is viewed as though he is speaking of black people. It then makes it okay to hate black people. Although I identify with what happens with race wars, I also see how politically we are finding it okay to call for the deaths of political rivals. That is not just one side, it is seen on both sides of the political spectrum.

I ask you this: who exactly are we? Are we not the human race? Can we not overcome our conditioning? No matter who you hate in politics that hatred does not change the other side. I am not aware of one time in history where someone said because they hate me so much, I am going to change my way of doing things. I hated when my mom made me hug my sister because we were not getting along, but when I look out over the state of the world today, I am grateful for those experiences because I know things can be worked out if you put effort into making it happen.

We just have to see each other as family not as rivals. Are we not all family of the human race? I know I am being naive and simplistic. It will take more than my observation to change what I see happening throughout the world. My hope is that we will each take a look at ourselves. I was one chastising Republicans for the hate they dished out, so how can I in good conscience do the same thing? Biden said “he is my opponent not my enemy.” We can make a difference in America if we keep remembering we are not enemies just because we are rivals. Our mommies may not sit us down and tell us to make up but now that is our job. The world only gets better if we find ways to not live in the hatred, we have been conditioned to live in.

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