To Vomit or Punch?

That is the question.

Yesterday was another very long day in jr. high school. For those of you who don't know, I've been freelance interpreting for the Deaf for several months. (...now that I've graduated with a degree that has nothing to do with my current job and I'm living at home with my parents at the age of 22. ((ps. I've recently understood both of these things to be a huge blessing. More on that later.)))

I've subbed as an interpreter at this particular jr. high before, and really enjoyed working with the group of Deaf and hard of hearing kids there. But this time was different.

The kids I was working with were just as nice, chatty, and attentive as they were before; it was the other students that made me sick.

While waiting outside math class, I overheard a group of students ridiculing the unaware deaf student several feet away.

"I just want to beat him over the head."

"Yeah, I'll be I could smack him into a pulp with my hard arm cast."

"I dare you to just walk by and punch him."

"I'll do it if you'll do it."

Luckily, these little bird brains were all talk, but, like most things of this kind, I took it personally.

Next, while walking out of a class, I walked right into a very loud, if not shouted conversation where a child somewhere around the age of 14 yelled:

"All Jews belong in ovens."

I'm not the strongest of people, and I don't have a hard cast to use as a weapon, but I was nearly positive I could beat that kid into a pulp within minutes if I wasn't completely positive parents and school would quickly ensue legal action against me.

I was absolutely disgusted. Again, I was hugely offended.

I concluded my day with a nice dose of jr. high P.E.

All the while, during any test, worksheet, or personal time of the students, I'd been reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a postapocalyptic novel where a father and son struggle to live because of their love for one another. Throughout the novel, the boy constantly asks his father, "We're the good guys, right?" "We wouldn't hurt those people because we're the good guys, right?" "We would have saved that baby because we're the good guys, right?" Their emaciated bodies painfully grope for progression--away from "the bad guys." The gruesome horrors they endure daily are merely tolerated in survival mode as they live with no hope of a future and constant fear of death.

I will save you the details of what "the bad guys" do, but suffice it to say, I was not a happy camper yesterday. Not to mention the fact that I was sick with an upset stomach.

So, all of this together made my already churning stomach slosh with anger and malice--the very things I saw in others. This black hole of hate sucked me in as I realized I hated the hater.

My mind began to reflect on haters of the past. Other books that came to mind are Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn.

I remember one particular scene where a small group of men under the rule of Stalin are forced to dig an icy grave in the frozen land. After a full day of work on their weak bodies, the soldier over watch commanded one of the diggers to throw another into the grave, burying him alive. When he refused, the guard turn to the almost victim and commanded him to throw in his supporter. The man did. And he was buried.

I've often wondered where such hate comes from, how such people as Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Hassein, Mugabe and many other could have had mothers and fathers and childhoods and be children of God and still hate and kill in the way they did. And what of all their followers. How do you become evil? I don't understand it--really.

As I looked around this school and reflected on the words from The Road, "We're the good guys, right?" I placed myself in Nazi Germany where neighbors turned on neighbors, and friends gave up on friends. I thought of my own neighbors and friends; I thought of the students in the hall. If we were forced into a survival mode, if I were walking the road in postapocalyptic America, would I be a good guy? Would I give of my own vital resources to help another who all knew would "die anyway"?

I know hate is taught, but it is also accepted by the learner. What 14-year-old would come up with such things without a peer, parent or idolized person first saying such?

I interpreted a clip from an old movie last night where a man from another planet lingers in a cemetery with a young boy.

Bobby Benson: [indicating grave marker during a visit to Arlington] That's my father. He was killed at Anzio.
Klaatu: Did all those people die in wars?
Bobby Benson: Most of 'em. Didn't you ever hear of the Arlington Cemetery?
Klaatu: No, I'm afraid not.
Bobby Benson: You don't seem to know much about anything, do you, Mr. Carpenter?
Klaatu: Well, I'll tell you, Bobby, I've been away a long time. Very far away.
Bobby Benson: Is it different where you've been? Don't they have places like this?
Klaatu: Well, they have cemeteries, but not like this one. You see, they don't have any wars.
Bobby Benson: Gee, that's a good idea.

Why can't I come from a place where there are no wars? Why do people have to hate?