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On Hatred
Is it ever right to hate someone?
It took me decades to learn to allow myself to hate certain people who have wronged and abused me. I would have been happier and healthier if I had encountered earlier the idea that hating my abusers was not only permissible but an important step toward moving beyond my abuse.
Whenever I get a chance, I teach James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son,” which is a sort of memoir about the death of his father and life in Harlem in the 1940s. I love how honest and sensitive it is, and it says important things about grief, abuse, and hatred that don’t often get expressed.
Even though “Notes of a Native Son” appears to be autobiographical, I am going to write about it as a work of fiction and attribute the ideas in the text to a narrator rather than the author. I am not 100% certain that the author endorses or recommends all of the ideas expressed in the text.
“Notes of a Native Son” expresses some commonplace but unhealthy ideas about codependency and trauma. For example, it suggests that abused children should think of their abuse as preparation for the harsh realities of the adult world:
Only the Lord saw the midnight tears, only He was present when one of His children, moaning and wringing hands, paced up and down the room. When one slapped one’s child in anger the recoil…
