Charlottesville, despite all its horror and the heated debates it has caused, can teach America an age-old lesson: hatred is a learned behavior.
We are not born to dislike the man next to us due to the color of his skin, nor are we to fear an entire community of people in an overseas locale due to the actions of some extremist few. When we're children, you'll find children will play with children, and this will be without regard to skin, race or religious practice.
As they grow older, as the media and their elders in society gain tighter holds on the mindsets of the youth, they become more close-minded. Suddenly, there are social divides. The division between people on the basis of class, economy and other environmental factors begins to sink in and divide former friends.
And, does anyone know how the Charlottesville riots even got started? When the community attempted to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee's (please correct me if I'm wrong) statue in his memory. This act led to the gathering of white nationalists with lit tiki torches and described hate speech.
Yet, free speech is a right given to the people, and therefore, legal rights were protected by police officers as they protested the world changing in ways they did not agree.
Unfortunately, events spiraled quickly out of control, and the incident wherein a vehicle injured several protesters on the other side of the argument occurred. Without delving into the details and accounts personally, it is, without doubt, a tragedy what has unfolded in Virginia.
The fact remains, however, that this hatred was not something anyone is born with; it is observed and replicated. For every man, woman or child you may have seen photographed carrying a torch and shouting their beliefs, there is another earlier on in their life who once acted in the same way.
To combat a growing unrest in civility in our nation, it starts with us recognizing the problem is ideology, and combating this conflict at its core roots.
