by Susan Durbin Panker

Created on: April 15, 2009   Last Updated: April 16, 2009

Cultural hatred starts in the homes at infancy. Nothing can make this point clearer than when a television talk show had Ku Klux Klan members on stage clad in white robes with babes in their arms dressed in KKK baby outfits with pointed hat and all. It was utterly shocking and thought provoking. Changing thought processes has to start with our children.

Some adults are changing their thought processes towards tolerance and understanding everyday by traveling and interacting with people from different cultures. The human race however, seems too broad to hope for a Utopian world.

Hatred is not innate. A newborn baby is the purist form of love. Humans that hate other cultures lack the ability to think for themselves through stupidity or ignorance. They are taught to hate and to only like their own kind. Hatred is simply fear based. To overcome fear one needs to be rational. Some people that have cultural hatred more than likely have a psychological deficiency and don't possess the faculties to expand their minds to think beyond what they believe. How do we tolerate the intolerant?

Attitudes are difficult to change. Attitudes are deeply ingrained within one's psyche. Daily feedback from others that think the same way only inhibits the mind from growing and looking beyond the comfort zone. Children that are born to parents that have been raised by parents who are bigots will more than likely have the tendency to become a bigot. It's learned from the cradle. The pattern has to be broken some how. Educators are becoming the interceptors to combat the narrow mindedness. Schools are now teaching tolerance, acceptance and diversity as early as Kindergarten, possibly even earlier in some schools. The more open-minded parents will learn from their children. Sadly, there will be parents that look at the schools as teaching their children to be against what they believe to be true in their own minds. Other societies across the planet teach their students to hate certain cultures and countries. Through lies, misinformation and brainwashing, innocent children's minds are being molded to hate for no reason.

Looking at the animal kingdom as an example shows us how passive and aggressive behavior is established. We are territorial by nature and most feel comfortable when surrounded by people like themselves. It is less threatening. What makes us different than the animal kingdom is our ability to think and be rational. Fear is what stops us from advancing in all areas of our lives.

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