How do you go to church in Charleston S.C., sit in a prayer circle and end up being slaughtered because someone had so much hatred in their heart based on an irrelevant physical characteristic like skin color? How do you do something as simple as sitting in your car outside of a discount store chain in Florida or try to shop inside and you’re met with gunfire because a deranged individual decided your Black life didn’t matter enough for you to live. In Buffalo New York, 10 skinfolk didn’t deserve to be slain while they were in a grocery store SWB (Shopping While Black). I could cite an endless list of other examples of hate being the impetus for so many people, who look like me, being hunted down and killed by those free from facing serious consequences for their actions. If the punishment would fit the crime, my newsfeed wouldn’t be filled with daily lethal examples from across these so called United States.

The nation was rocked off its collective foundation back in 1955 as they stared in horror at the ghastly sight of 14 year old Emmett Till, who was brutalized, lynched, and murdered by hate filled white men. They were cleared of the charges and callously bragged to a national magazine about this deadly and dastardly crime. As a nation, when instances of hate inspired violence rears its head, we’re temporarily and situationally angry for about two weeks. We then go back to treating those victimized as nameless and faceless cogs in a broken and unjust system until the next time society feels its ok to be publicly outraged and horrified at hate. Sixty five years after Till, in 2020, we acted like one united America for a few minutes as we showed our disgust for how Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd were the victims of a new kind of videoed hate. We expended a lot of wasted energy marching in every city, singing and chanting cute rhymes and slogans, and even painting roadways with beautiful inspirational words and designs. But what changed in the way of legislation or any semblance of protection for the darker skin hued people? Nothing.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was rightly mercilessly booed off the podium and microphone when he attended a vigil after the most recent Florida hate crime murders. He was tone deaf and couldn’t read the room as many white politicians do when they stand in front of an emotional Black community thinking their presence alone means something. He had the clueless arrogance to say to the reeling and hurting crowd, “We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race. We are going to stand up, and we are going to do what we need to do to make sure that evil does not triumph in the state of Florida.” Someone yelled back assigning the blame squarely where it belonged, “Your policies are responsible for this!” DeSantis created that hate from his own.

I’ve seen that sideshow antic practiced many times. You can’t make decisions and implement policies that bring harm to a marginalized community, utter coded racist language that riles up your base while devaluing those outside of your own or create a divisive atmosphere tinged with hate dripping from your every word. It will compel someone looking for a reason to harm or kill someone from another ethnicity. You can’t then come to a vigil and pretend you care just for photo ops, walk in the Livingstone College parade, regurgitate a quote at the MLK Breakfast, attend a Black church at election time and make a speech, or stop in the hood to buy a fish plate you probably won’t eat and think it somehow proves you care about the plight of the Black community.

The late Dr. Maya Angelou said, “Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it hasn’t solved one yet.” It’s the current political norm that gained steam and longevity under the former Racist in Chief. It’s the easiest way to curry favor and support from those who hate subtly or overtly. The strategy is to create white rage by blaming immigrants, people of color and poor people for all the societal ills. When I listen to people like Sarah Palin, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others of their ilk in influential roles, the hatred for people who don’t look like them is obvious. Don’t get it twisted, just because you don’t say the word N***er out loud doesn’t mean you don’t still harbor hate. Silence and complicity holds the door open for those who put their hate into action.

As Dr. King said, “…Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Love is becoming harder to accomplish when hate is as American as baseball and apple pie.

Kenneth L. (Kenny) Hardin is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.