What's The World Coming To?

What's the world coming to? I am thoroughly disgusted at the news of the young black woman in West Virginia, who was held captive for a week, while being physically, sexually, and verbally abused. This poor woman was tortured, stabbed, and beaten, made to eat feces -- rat, and dog --and forced to drink water from the toilet. No doubt, she would have been murdered, and dumped somewhere like an animal, if she had not been rescued in time.

The fact that it happened at all is disgusting, but the people involved made it even more disgusting, if that is at all possible. They were a mother and her son, a mother and her daughter, and two others, men, all white. Does the fact that they were white, and she was black, make it more heinous? Could it be more heinous? It is being called a hate crime, but isn't it always hatred that causes someone to inflict such harm on another human being? Perhaps, it is not always hatred of the person, but misdirected hatred of something else, that drives a person to such cruelty. The fact that they kept calling her a racially offensive name does indicate that it could have been a racially motivated crime.

Back in January of this year, in Knoxville, Tennessee, a young white couple were hijacked by three black men, and a black woman. They were brutally raped, and murdered --she was strangled, and he was shot, and his body burned, and left by the side of a railroad track. She was discovered inside the house where they were taken, inside a garbage bag. Was this a hate crime? I don't know. According to some reports, it was a random crime, and had nothing to do with race. The crime didn't receive a lot of media coverage, for some reason.

In the case of the young black woman who was tortured, it has been reported that she met one of the men involved through the Internet, so perhaps, it, too, was a random crime. She denies this, so until it is proven otherwise, she must be given the benefit of the doubt.

There will always be some kind of hatred in the world, as long as the world stands. Either because of race, or religion, a sense of injustice, or perceived injustices. When it comes to the victims mentioned here, and the senseless, and perverse, horror inflicted on them, in my mind, it comes down to one thing: pure, unadulterated, evil.

Friendship

It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy own shining, and, no longer a mate for frogs and worms, dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean. It is thought a disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited. True love transcends the unworthy object, and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its independency the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may deify both.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803-1882