TOLERANCE

How do we become such intolerant people?

I grew up in a time of wide racial divide. Before I entered public school I played with black children with no thoughts that they were different. When I was five I remember two black men who lived on a large farm in eastern North Carolina where my father was the manager. Charley lived alone in a cabin near the barn; Poke lived with his wife and several children out among the fields. They were all my friends.

The next year, as I entered first grade there were no blacks at my school, none at my church. I do not think I noticed their absence those early years. Most of my friends and I thought little about discrimination in those days. I do remember the separate water fountains and rest rooms at Sears Roebuck where my father worked until he bought his own farm when I was 8 years old. --- Brown v Board of Education, 9-0 decision in May 1954 brought the bias out into the open. No one in the white community seemed willing to accept integrated schools.

I don't think we are born with prejudice, but we learn it from our parents and teachers and at our religious institutions. Most do not intentionally teach it, but it just sort of rubs off. Children are sensitive to body language more than adults. They read it before they understand words.

The worst in my humble opinion is developed in the churches synagogues and mosques. Where we should be learning to love our neighbors as ourselves. We can not seem to accept that others have different beliefs from our own.

I believe that all world religions believe in loving their neighbors. Christians, Jews and Muslims all recognize the 10 commandments.

So, why do we have so much hate?

William McPherson