Cue the news cycle again. Mass shooting. Guns. Terrorism. Blame.
It's all hate. Are you for more of it or against all of it?
Cue up all of the anti-gun, anti-muslim rhetoric.
Let's find out if the shooter ever knew anyone from the Middle East. Let's trace the NRA money.
Let's make some laws. Ban the guns. Ban the muslims.
These aren't the causes--they're the outlets and the catalysts. It starts with feeling like an "other". You feel disconnected from the oneness of all of us. Maybe you felt shame. Maybe you felt alone. Someone didn't like who you are or you didn't think it was ok to like who you are.
Whatever the seed, it was planted.
America, as it turns out, is a very fertile place for the seeds of hatred to grow. No matter who you hate--women, gays, Muslims, blacks--you can easily feel quite justified and be surrounded with more love via shared hatred than at any moment in your life.
There's a togetherness in targeting "others". This is exponentially true on the internet.
Are we really that surprised that such a violent, insensitive culture gives birth to such horrific acts at a rate that far outstrips any other first world country?
Just look at how badly this snowballs after the fact. Blame is placed, and we are divided further. Nothing gets us angrier than hate--and the cycle continues.
Too many people have an incentive to keep the cycle going--the media, the gun manufacturers, the prison-industrial complex, and conservatives. They perpetuate the notion that the world is a zero sum game where there are winners and losers, and someone else is trying to take from you all the time, and if you don't fight them, you let them win.
Donald Trump is the personification of these forces. He is a perfect storm of fear mongering, 24 hour news cycles, and xenophobia.
They're coming for you.
They're not like us.
They want to end our way of life, so we need to end theirs.
Hate them. They hate us.
Do you really think your hate is "better" than their hate?
Who is "us" anyway?
Who are "they"?
Nearly every terror attack on US soil since 9/11 has been carried out by American citizens, most of whom have had little to no official training or contact with Al Qaeda or ISIS.
They may think they're part of a cause--but no more so than Trump's hate is part of some kind of American "patriotism".
We have a hate problem in this country more than we have a gun problem or any kind of problem with religious extremism. People who fail to see that we are all part of a whole can't find their way to a state of connection with others.
You're either working for or against this hate.
It's that simple.
You're hypocrite if you hate all Muslims because one Muslim hated gays so much, and probably himself, that he took a gun into a gay club and started shooting.
Your hate is no better than his.
Hate is never just.
Anyone who makes you feel less connection with the world around you--who tells you that there are vast numbers of people who are very different than you--isn't someone to be trusted or followed.
They are perpetuating the biggest lie we have going--that we are not all the same. Somewhere along the line, the man who walked into the club this weekend could have used an embrace and he never got it.
No one is born wanting to bring an assault rifle into a gay club.
The world doesn't need any more anger. It doesn't need a leader who divides. If we don't support someone who can bring us together, we will all fall apart.
We are the shooter and the victims.