Normalising hate

I have written and spoken many times about Little Atrocities, a response to the work of Hannah Arendt and her observations at the trial of Adolf Eichmann In Jerusalem.

When we step over the smallest expressions of hate and oppression we lay the foundation for hate and oppression to become normal. 

It is so easy to ‘let it go’ when it is small. Just as it is to ‘let it go’ when we have something to say yet we hold our tongue until the Chasm of the Unspoken becomes so big there is no crossing.

Hate is not born within, it is cultivated from the smallest planted seed. At the moment of the very first expression, the seed is either weeded out or given fertiliser. 

The danger we face in our current climate is a result of our stepping over hate, racism, cruelty, ‘othering’ and marginalisation when it was the slightest shadow of a thought. 

Call it out. Name it. Or be the unwitting fertiliser until it is too late.

The pendulum swings, currently moving so hard and fast into the territory of extreme nastiness. Amplification will result in an explosion, costing so much for so many. 

And we will begin again, the collateral damage another story in history pages. 

Or we can learn to call it out in its smallest state. We the people get to choose.

Photo taken March 13th 2022