Hello, everyone. I have been hate free for five years. Welcome to Haters Anonymous. Although it has taken me years to fix my negative attitude I know I am not all the way cured because I still have an utter disgust of soccer moms. Ladies, I admit I used to be the epitome of an angry black woman. So, how did I become a woman who has resolved to be patient and loving my neighbor instead of a girl who rolls her eyes so much that people feared they might get stuck?
The earliest incident of hate I can remember was when I was six years-old and I was told that I couldn’t be Goldilocks in a play because I didn’t have the “right hair”. That day I stared down the girl who was able to be Goldilocks and then I promptly went home and put a yellow turtle neck on my head. Now who didn’t have the right hair? Fast forward to my teenage years. This was the time that I spent comparing myself to everyone and finding that I didn’t measure up. I was too light to hang with the black kids and too nappy to hang with anyone else, so naturally my eye roll began to evolve, dark shade thrown at anyone that didn’t look at me right.
My investment into the hatorade company wasn’t complete until I found that the sight of interracial couples put me in a bad mood. Yep. It was official. I had true hateration, spreading my disgust for no reason and frowning when I saw two people together of different skin colors. Perhaps, this hatred was rooted within my own insecurities. My own fears that had emerged from the feelings of never being accepted in middle school. By this time the questions as to why I was always so mad was not unusual. It was when I started asking myself why that I noticed something was awry with me. When you get to the point where everything and everyone makes you want to screw up your face as if you smelled something funny then that’s when you know that something is really wrong.
The first thing I had to do was to take a step back and do some self-examining. Why does the sight of soccer moms annoy me? Could it be that I want to spend more time with my family instead of working all day? When we find ourselves displaying crunchiness as a major character trait we have to ask (at least I had to) why does another person’s life bother me so much? After you’ve got all the answers you’re looking for apply some knowledge. Perhaps the reason seeing Tony with Lisa makes the green-eyed monster roar is because you want to find what they found: a connection that defies man-made boundaries.
Someone once said you can’t give away what you don’t have – and if you don’t have love for yourself how can you be expected to love others? I lacked love of and for who I was and when I was void of the warmth of love hate grew in its absence.
Through admittance and patience I have been able to free myself of this painful resolve. I have begun to slowly work myself away from the idealization of hate to mask my own feelings and accept self-love. Life has been a whole lot brighter since then.
If you’re riding the hateration train, I challenge you to get off at the next stop and join me. Find out what is fueling that outer hatred. Confused feelings? Anxieties? Lack of self-love? It’s okay to recognize that we as humans are not perfect and can easily use our jealousies or lack of satisfaction with ourselves to hurt others. What is not okay is failing to do anything about it.
