POLING: Hating the ‘other side’ for hating ‘us’

Published 6:00 am Saturday, January 2, 2021

“Why do we hate them, Daddy?”

“Because they hate us, son.”

A small boy asked his father this question several years ago at a Winnersville Classic football game between Valdosta and Lowndes high schools. They sat on a row of bleachers behind me.

Given the rivalry between the two teams, the history, the intensity of the game, it’s easy to imagine a similar father and son seated on the other side having the same conversation.

See, the side doesn’t matter so much as the fact there are some folks who think that way on both sides. Even if it’s – hopefully – only for one game.

Do we really hate our neighbor because they sit on the other side? Do we really hate them because we believe they hate us? Or is all that hate self-perpetuating?

That overheard conversation has stuck with me for more than a decade. It’s come to mind more often in recent months and years as we as a nation and a community tell each other we hate one another and believe the other side hates our side.

I’ve wondered about that boy hearing an easy discussion about hate coming from his dad. If the conversation between two strangers has stayed with me, imagine how it’s stayed with that boy who is a young man by now?

Did he embrace the idea of hating the other side? Is it easy to hate the other side if we are told by someone we love and trust that the other side hates us?

Or did he reject it so hard he may kindle more than resentment for his father? Did the boy go to school that following Monday and tell his buddies, My dad says we hate them because they hate us? Did any of the boy’s buddies buy into that?

It would seem we have bought into that idea of hating one another. Not the Wildcats and the Vikings. But politically.

We have leaders and commentators – people we trust – who tell us the other side is un-American, the other side is evil; the other side doesn’t just want to be evil, it wants to corrupt all of us; destroy us; turn us and the country into something unrecognizable.

We have people we know – people close to us, people we love and trust – pass those ideas along in conversations and on Facebook. We talk about the evil Democrats. We talk about the evil Republicans. We call each other communists. We call each other fascists. We call each other horrible things.

And we don’t just see the other side as despicable villains. We see our side as glorious heroes. By standing against the other side, we stand with what’s right. 

Our leaders hear us and they echo these things back to us.

Leaders and commentators fuel this idea with suggestions that joining them will save us, a vote for them will save America.

But will hating the other half of America save America? Will believing they hate us and in turn we hate them save any of us?

Why do we hate them? Because they hate us.

For some folks that’s about the only thing both sides can agree on.

And if we all hate one another, we are all sadly on the same side. 

The wrong side.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times.