Openmindedness The Healthy Cure to Hate
[Music]
[Applause]
no matter
who you are or who you identify with
you have or you will experience a moment
in your life where you feel angry or
hurt
i know how this feels as i have been in
your shoes before
a few years ago i was in a new place to
start a new chapter of my life
and because of this change i found
myself in a room of new people
after a few minutes of conversation one
of the kids i didn’t know turned to me
and said something
something that would change me forever
are you jewish but that’s not how he
said it
are you jewish
i told him i was and asked why he wanted
to know
he looked at me as if i were repulsive
do you know what he said
i wish you and all
the other jews had burnt in the ovens in
the holocaust
so we wouldn’t have to deal with you
anymore
yes those words actually came out
of a kid my age’s mouth
believe me i know that is a lot for you
to take in
and for me this person attacked my faith
but for you
someone could attack your race your
sexual orientation
your religion etc and as you could
imagine
i was shocked why would someone say
something so horrible why would someone
have so much hate and resentment towards
me
why do they hate me and not just
hate me why do they wish me dead
if this wasn’t enough why would they
draw upon
the worst genocide in modern history to
be the cause of my
murder obviously
and for good reason it didn’t take me
long to despise this person
and i didn’t even know him that well but
one thing i did know
is that he definitely was not jewish
as i was trying to process what could
have motivated him to say these
things i struggled with making
assumptions about his religion
just as he had done mine i just could
not wrap my head around
how he a member of a religion that put
such
emphasis on loving thy neighbor could
treat me
his neighbor so poorly after
months and months of this resentment
boiling inside me
a starting realization came to my mind
i too had become hateful
i hated him because he hated me
i fought his anger with my own i began
to counter
all of his assumptions about my religion
by doing the exact same thing about his
because i was put in a situation where i
felt victimized
hate took over my heart and it affected
me deeply
fortunately i realized that my
resentment towards his religion
were not true and the anger i felt
towards him
was not helping me in any way in fact
it was hurting me this is when i decided
i needed to change my way of thinking
he had made it up in his head that i was
his enemy
he decided this without truly getting to
know me
as a person he was close-minded
and i knew in that moment i wanted to
become
open-minded now i do not think being
open-minded means you absolutely have to
love
every person in the world but i do think
it requires you
to respect the views cultures and
differences of your peers
even if you do not agree with them or
practice them yourself
in my opinion people have the common
misconception
that the way they are is the only way to
be
but in reality this is just not true
we are all different and that is an
amazing thing
when i decided to become the better
person i wanted to use this philosophy
of open-mindedness to grow from my
experience
i was not going to let this hateful
person control me i
identified how he made me feel and that
it was wrong
i then decided how i wanted to feel
now of course i am not saying you should
tolerate the hateful actions
or words of an oppressor let me hone in
on this for a second
what that person did to me was
unacceptable
things like these need to be stopped in
our communities
but together as an open-minded community
this is possible we can put it into hate
use their actions and words as an
incentive to
not be that way don’t fight hate with
hate
fight close-minded people with being the
opposite
open-minded and to do that
one thing you’re going to have to do
first is forgive
others ignorance call them on it
challenge them to make a change but
forgive it too
and that is a battle for sure
forgiveness is not
easy but it is in your best interest
forgiveness allows us
to let go of those negative emotions
that hurt us and replace them with
positive ones
all that resentment you bottle up let it
go
send it away when we suppress these
traumatic
experiences they have a tendency to
fester inside
to darken your mindset you have to let
them go
but live in them for a minute first
feel them know them and acknowledge them
because you should really feel these
challenging emotions
instead of repressing them
if everyone would learn to accept and
respect
those around them for who they really
are we can slowly heal
the hate and negativity that affects our
communities
i invite you to reflect on these hateful
moments
did you react to these moments of hatred
thoughtfully
and with empathy so that the situation
did not spiral into something even more
toxic
sometimes it will feel like all you can
do is contemplate
everything that went wrong in the
situation and you might dig yourself
into a hole of frustration
and sadly one of the ways we feel that
we can claw our way out
is by becoming the oppressor too
but if we make a conscious effort to
change how we
think to accept those among ourselves
for their true authentic selves
we can create a more open-minded future
although the sting of his words may
never completely go away
i’ve been able to soothe that pain by
being open-minded
i have grown for my experience in a
healthy way
so the next time you find yourself in a
position
of hurt and anger remember the things
we’ve talked about today
so that you can heal in a way that does
not result in
even more hate because i know
we can all become the better person
thank you