A meditation on hate, memory, and the long road back to each other.
There are a lot of things we inherit from the human condition—curiosity, love, wonder, even a bit of mischief. But hate… hate is learned. Passed down like some poisonous heirloom, tucked into the corners of the soul where fear makes its home.
Racism—bigotry in all its twisted forms—isn’t just some abstract evil, it’s personal. It’s one person looking at another and deciding that one detail—skin color, belief, accent—is enough to judge a whole life. And maybe worse, to end it.
Now, I’ve been lucky. I’ve walked on golden sand in the middle East, shared bread in Asia, argued over coffee in Europe, and swapped stories with folks from every continent. You do that long enough, and you start to see the same thing in every face. Dreams. Longing. The ache for love, and hoping for something better for your kids. Strip away the flag, the language, the music, and we’re still made from the same stardust. Still human.
And yet… still we fall into fear. We weaponize difference. We turn our shared strength into a vulnerability. And the people who thrive in that darkness—malicious cowards, really—know exactly what they’re doing. They can’t stand toe to toe with understanding or compassion, so they lash out. Power through fear, not respect. And it’s always the same story.
Let’s look at a few.
Europe.
The Pogroms of 1881 to 1884: mobs of ethnic Russians attacking Jewish neighbors. Again in 1917, organized attacks—rape, murder, looting—this time with the wink and nod of police and government. These weren’t invaders. These were neighbors. People who once shared songs and stories across a fence line.
The Holocaust- Nazi Germany: 1933 to 1945. A “civilized” and modern society- The country didn’t just look the other way, it orchestrated the murder of six million Jews, and millions more: The disabled, the gay, the poor, the inconvenient, the weak. American GIs found concentration camps a few miles from quiet picturesque towns. People declared, “We didn’t know.” But of course, they knew. You can’t ignore the smell of evil and pretend it was just smoke from a chimney. Try explaining that to God when your soul’s laid bare.
The Bosnian genocide started brewing in 1992 to 1995. Serbians, trying to erase the Bosniaks. In just five days—July 11 to 16—almost 10,000 men and boys were shot, beheaded, thrown into mass graves. Dutch troops tried to help but were pushed back. Diplomacy failed. It wasn’t until American airpower showed up and brought with it the fear of God and the United States that the massacre stopped. When the graves were dug up, the truth hit like a hammer: no DNA difference, no visible line. They were the same people—except one group had been taught to hate the other.
Asia.
From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, backed by Mao’s China, slaughtered up to 2.8 million Cambodians. Teachers, doctors, monks, mothers, children, anyone who didn’t fit the revolution’s mold. A full quarter of the population wiped out. The ones who didn’t die were forced to kill their neighbors. A whole country bled under a twisted ideology. And who stopped it? Vietnam, when they decided to invade. A neighbor, finally sick of the blood.
Today, it’s Myanmar. The Rohingya people—killed, displaced, hunted—because of a different religion. The UN talks. The EU writes statements. The ICJ drafts resolutions. But words don’t stop bullets. And action hasn’t come. Not yet.
Africa.
1994- Rwanda. Nearly a million Tutsi murdered by their Hutu neighbors. And again, look closely—same land, same language, same laugh. Just two tribes caught in the chokehold of hate. France didn’t want to act, even though they were in the area. It wasn’t until the U.S. forced the issue at the UN, and threatened to send troops that the French finally took action. Not out of compassion. Out of pride. To save face. They established safe zones—but not before the rivers ran red.
And now? Now we’re home.
Here in the land of the free. A place I still believe in. We’re being tested. Our democracy, our decency—it’s under siege. I’ve stopped watching the news some days. It’s too painful to see us—this great, complicated, beautiful nation—slipping toward the same shadows that swallowed so many others.
But here’s the thing: I believe in Americans. I believe in our better nature. We’re the people who stormed Normandy. Who marched in Selma. Who rebuilt after fires and floods and heartbreak. Who helped other nations in times of natural disasters. We have been lost before, but we’ve always found our way back to ourselves, to our better angels. I still believe we will.
So, what do we do? Right now, when the world feels frayed.
We take care of our neighbors and look after one another, lend a hand when it’s needed. Speak up when it matters- loud if need be. But never resort to violence.
We shake the hand we might’ve once feared.
We don’t let cruelty slip by unnoticed. Not on our watch. Not in this town, not in this lifetime.
We remember that love makes light and hate only deepens the dark.
And we take it to heart that this is still the home of the brave.
Maybe, just maybe, when the final reckoning comes, we’ll be able to proudly say, whilst the times were dark, we tried to love more than we judged and found the light. And we won.
That’s something worth striving for.
It might just save us. And return the United States of America to its rightful place: The vanguard of Democracy, the defender of Freedom and the beacon of hope for all mankind.
Just a note, friends—there aren’t any pictures with this one. That was deliberate. I tried, believe me. But the images I came across… well, they were hard to look at. Too hard. And I figured if they shook me like that, they’d likely do the same to you.
So I left them out.
I only hope that doesn’t take away from what I’m trying to impart here. I hope the words are enough. That they land where they need to—somewhere quiet, somewhere true.
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A Kings 
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