Blog Post #33: Understanding Why (pt.1)

Many people are still asking why. Why do so many people still support this guy? Do all these people really hate immigrants and want to keep women in their place? Are the people who voted for Harris really atheists and communists? I doubt any of this and I would encourage you to do the same. Everyone had different reasons for supporting and for continuing to support the politicians that do. The only way to understand why the other person supports the person they do is to ask them. But you must do this in a respectful way. Not assuming you're better than they are and that you, out of the goodness of your heart, are going to educate them about the error of their ways. Understanding why is about being able to communicate effectively and connect with other people. Much of the voting behavior this time was based on emotion and not on facts or logic. Fear played a big role in this last election.

Remember, people are not born hating other people. White supremacists were not born that way. I will give you two examples of what shapes people's biases and prejudices.

I had a dear aunt who died at an early age, 59. She had a very difficult life. She got married at an early age and lost her first husband to a heart attack in his late 20s. His heart had been damaged by fever when he was a child and both he and my aunt knew that he might not live very long. But they were in love. A few years after his death, she remarried and life was good for a while with her second husband, who unfortunately died of a gunshot wound. She was not accused of killing him but was accused of having caused his "suicide," even though the medical examiner ruled it was not a suicide. Rumors in my small town spread. His family turned against my aunt and blamed her for his death. She ended up leaving town feeling very angry and bitter about the whole experience, as did my entire family. She took a job working as a secretary at an airbase near my hometown. She started doing things that I had never seen her do before, such as drinking. She dated some of the officers, who I think were quite prejudiced, and she took on their prejudice and their hateful behavior. She finally did meet a nice guy and married him but he was an old boy with his own set of prejudices and beliefs. I remember when King was killed. They told me it was better that he had been killed since he was a "communist." I never heard my dear aunt speak one negative word toward anyone before or express any racial bias until these changes occurred in her life. She began to use the N word frequently during this time. Thankfully, things began to change for the better. She settled down with the guy she had met at the base and got involved with a local church that she said saved her life. She was happy, which dampened much of the racism but not all of it.

The second example I will share in my next blog

Ron Breazeale PhD