PHL Love, Hatred, and Resentment

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Tie-In Essay #1

Hate is one of the most powerful weapons in the world. In the wrong hands hate and hate speech can be used to divide people against one another, as well as, incite unrest by emboldening groups to lash out in violent ways. In the chapter “Organisation of Hate,” Sara Ahmed analyzes the way in which these groups create narratives that not only justify their hateful actions and speech but also position themselves as the victims of the narratives that they spin. An example of one of these narratives in the news recently is the rhetoric surrounding President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to build a border wall between the shared U.S./Mexico border. Comment by Rachel: Clear, concise summary of the main claim Comment by Rachel: Clear thesis

In the chapter, Ahmed analyzes how these narratives are constructed and what point they serve for those who create them. In regards to narratives that are constructed through the lens of hate, Ahmed states that “Such narratives work by generating a subject that is endangered by imaginary others whose proximity threatens not only to take something away from the subject (jobs, security, wealth), but to take the place of the subject” (43). In simpler terms, Ahmed is saying that the effectiveness of these narratives lies in the creation of divisions. These divisions are created by implicating the other as a threat to the way of life of the subject. Essentially, the group is the subject and those who are not a part of that group are the other. Furthermore, after justifying their hatred for the others these groups will validate their feelings and actions by representing themselves as the victims of the situation. In the chapter Ahmed uses the White Aryans as an example of a group that crafts similar narratives by portraying those who are ethnically different than themselves as a threat to their way of life (43). The White Aryans claim that it is in fact their love for their people and way of life that emboldens them to lash out with hatred. They justify themselves by claiming that the threat of the other is their motivation as supposed to a hatred for those who are different than themselves. Ahmed also acknowledges this stating that “the presence of this other is imagined as a threat to the object of love” (43). Finally, in the chapter Ahmed alludes to the fact that these narratives are effective because they foster fear in those who identify with the subject. This allows groups that create these narratives the agency to take drastic and often times irrational measures in the name of love and fear as osupposed to hate, which is the true driving force behind their actions. Unfortunately, a similar narrative has been deployed by President Donald Trump in an attempt to garner support for his highly controversial border wall proposal. Comment by Rachel: Nice transition statement; ties the two parts of the paper together smoothly.

For the past month the United States government has been shutdown. The thirty-two-day shutdown is now the longest in U.S. history passing the previous record, which occurred during the Clinton tenure, by eleven days (Trump On Shutdown 2019). The main issue that has kept the government shutdown for such a long period of time is President Trump’s controversial proposal to build a wall between the U.S./Mexico border. Trump has requested 5.7 billion dollars to get his wall built (Trump on Shutdown 2019). House Democrats refuse to give the President the money that he is asking for and as a result the two parties cannot agree on a budget for the 2019 financial year. Until they do, the metaphorical doors to the government will stay closed until further notice. The narrative that Trump has been pushing in order to justify his proposal to build his border wall is a perfect example of the kind that Ahmed was talking about in the chapter. On multiple occasions Trump has publicly alluded to immigrants entering into the country being threats. He’s gone as far as calling these immigrants rapists, criminals, and overall bad people. This narrative that Trump and his administration have created has incited fear into his base and in many cases this fear has manifested itself into hatred. With this, Trump claims that the reasoning behind his proposal is his love for our country and the people in it. This allows him to justify his hate speech and now he is trying to use the same rhetoric to validate the building of his border wall. The reality of the situation is that the majority of the immigrants coming to the country are seeking asylum because of violent situations in their homelands (Ernst and Semple 2019). Trump ignores this fact, however, because in order for his narrative to be effective the nation which is the subject in this matter needs to be the victim. This rewriting of the truth is another byproduct of these kinds of narratives (Ahmed 43). In the case of Trump’s border wall this disturbing trend holds true. Sadly, for the time being it seems like the hate -filled narrative that Trump continues to propagate will stay at the center of public debate until a resolution to the shutdown is made by Congress.

Hate plays a huge role in our world today. From racial biases to injustices that are happening against those who are seeking asylum, the United States continues to struggle with the emotions of fear and hatred. Whether it be the average person having biases against someone they see as a dangerous other or the President of the country spewing volatile hate speech to reach a political end, our country seems to be plagued by the effects of hatred every day. As Ahmed identifies, the real problems begin to arise when narratives are created to justify these feelings of hate and when those who are harming others paint themselves as the victims through strategic rhetoric. We can only hope that as time passes we can come to see through these narratives and find the real truth that is buried beneath the rewriting of history that is done when these false narratives are replaced with the truth. Comment by Rachel: Conclusion ties up paper by summarizing main claims

Works Cited

Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 2nd Edition. Abigdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2013.

Associated Press. “Trump on Shutdown: ‘We'll be out for a long time’.” Nbcnews.com. 16 January 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-shutdown-we-ll-be-out-long-time-n959251. Accessed 22 January 2019.

Ernst, Jeff and Kirk Semple. “Migrant Caravan Departs Honduras, and Trump Again Calls for a Wall.” The New York Times. 15 January 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/world/americas/migrant-caravan-honduras.html. Accessed 22 January 2019.