hate | Random Misanthrope

It’s the hate that I find so staggering,
The deep, blind, and passionate, gripping hate.
How does a person get to that dark place?
Driven to slaughter members of their race.
Yes, their race. For truth is there’s only one.
Not political correctness, but fact.
Not wishful thinking, but plain simple truth.
What mind-numbing fear stops that getting through?
We fight for freedom of speech, at what cost?
Is there something we’re missing? Something lost?
There are few freedoms that are inherent,
Perhaps that’s the thing that we’ve come to see,
They are all linked to responsibility,
That much becomes more and more apparent.
Believe many things, I’ll go along, but,
I’ll not grant the right for you to be wrong,
About this, this irrefutable fact,
We are one, one human tribe, one pact,
Divided by nation and circumstance,
Colour and race thrust upon us by chance,
That truth must bind, ironclad, forged in fire,
Extinguish the hate and raise ourselves higher,
All social tools choose a line to draw,
All institutions and forces of law,
Take persons and groups who just want to hate,
Bring them into the light and educate,
Walk the walk, talk the talk of inclusion,
No tolerance for any exclusion,
No exceptions for religion or faith,
The prime belief is we’re one human race,
Our peace and prosperity both depend,
On learning that we were made to transcend.

I don’t know if I should even be writing this really. I just don’t know what else to do, and I don’t think I can sleep at the moment.
I don’t have the right to cry really, and yet I do. He’s a friend of a friend, from San Francisco. I’ve never met him. Don’t know him. Don’t have any connection. But my friend knows/knew him well.
24 years old. A young, beautiful gay man. Filled with joy de vivre, a true lust for life, perhaps to the point of naiveté about his own safety. Mexican born, he liked to dress up in drag and go out. Not the flamboyant over-the-top kind of drag queen, but just transsexually; to dress up so he looked like a young Mexican girl. He would go out and have fun, mostly at a local club, where he was known for being fun and flirtacious.
He has been missing now for 2 days. The FBI have come by to talk to the family. They have recovered a burned body found in a garbage bag. The body fits his description, but they have to do dna tests because of its state to identify it.
The family is religious, and hopeful, but it doesn’t look good.

Despite my distance from the situation, it rips my fucking soul out. Absolutely crushing. I want to cry, and scream, and wail things like what is wrong with this world, but that’s not enough. Maybe they will catch who did this. Maybe they will even go to prison. However that won’t change the fact that a large percentage of the people in power, in the very system that might actually put the perpetrators in prison, right down the line to your average Joe, from top to bottom in society, will still either not give a shit at all because of this persons gender, appearance, and sexual preference. Some will even laugh and joke privately with each other, saying things like one less queer, or he got what he deserved, etc, etc.
To say it infuriates me is a massive understatement. The people who do these things walk among us. Live among us. Ride the bus with us. Okay, put them in prison, but don’t let it stop there. Post their pictures, and their whole life stories publicly. Let people know who they are, where they come from, where they worked. Spread the information in everyway possible about what kind of people do this. Show that they are not just freaks and outsiders and good ole boy rednecks. They are connected to segments in society and that should be shown, and magnified, put under the goddamned microscope and examined. Go further than that. Where are the massive public education programs that emphasize the right to be different, and show the cowardice that the fear of that difference is based on? Where is the public outcry?

This is a hatecrime, a pure and simple bald-faced disgusting hate crime. Every such crime should be thrust into the light. No secrets. When people murder because they are just afraid of anyone who is different, society needs to react with its full force. But it does not. Not by a long shot.
We need to rip the lid off.