This Is What They Mean When They Say "Thought Provoking"

 I attended Facebook friend Sarah Darer Littman's book launch for Some Kind of Hate, published last month. I attended by Zoom, and I meant to catch a picture, but I was distracted because I was late joining. Why? Well, I kind of forgot about it until the last minute.

I mention this, because it illustrates the beauty of Zoom. I sure wouldn't have been driving to that bookstore a minute or so after the event was scheduled to start. I also mention it, because the interview with Sarah at her book launch relating to how she came to write Some Kind of Hate and the background information she's accumulated was fascinating. She has materials at her website on the book.

Some Kind of Hate is written from two points of view, as many YA books are. One is Declan's, a young person who becomes involved with a white nationalist group, and the other is Jake's, Declan's Jewish friend, whose local community becomes a target for Declan's new friends. The points of view almost become separate stories. A book totally from Declan's point of view might have been a hard sell. He's risky, because he's not likable. He's definitely a realistic character: not very strong-willed even before a life-changing accident he brought on himself, and from what I've read, he's the perfect mark for a hate group. But he also is unwilling to accept responsibility for the boatload of grief he brought down on himself and his family. He projects responsibility for his circumstances onto others instead of shouldering it himself, which would then make it possible for him to take some kind of positive action about his life. He also illustrates very well why it is so difficult to reach someone like him. His hate group buddies support his misery and give him beliefs to make him feel better. It is difficult for his family and friends to use logic, fact, or family history to convince him to change, because he believes and belief doesn't require logic, fact, or any kind of knowledge. How deep a hole is he going to dig for himself becomes the narrative drive for Some Kind of Hate.   

I kept talking about this book as I read it, and I think the reason I found it so thought provoking is that I come out of a world similar to Declan's, though much more rural. So I kept thinking, why didn't I or anyone I know go Declan's way? There are a couple of answers: 1. It was a different time, hate groups weren't as prevalent, probably because there weren't as many opportunities for haters to find one another, because the Internet hadn't been invented. I worked for the one Jewish storeowner in our area, so I was aware of verbal unpleasantness directed toward him. But if I hadn't had a connection, I might not have known these things happened in my day and age, there was that little communication in the world. 2. For all I know, people I knew growing up are now members of some of these groups or at least sympathizers. I don't belong to the kind of on-line groups where I would run into them. 

After my sons left home for college, I would hear on the news about some good-awful thing a young man had done, and I'd wonder, Did I remember to tell my kids not to do that? One time I actually asked my younger son about one of these things I'd read about and asked him if I'd ever told him not to do it. He looked at me and said, "You shouldn't have had to."

As I was reading Some Kind of Hate, I wondered if I had forgotten to tell my sons not to be antisemites or racists, the way Declan's parents forgot to tell him. While it appears I didn't have to with my own children, it looks as if kids like Declan have to be told point blank.