Hate.

It is a word we all use too frequently and without thinking. I hate those shoes. I hate my classes at school. I hate my hair today. I hated that movie. Hate. Hate. Hate. It is used broadly, generally, in sweeping sentences that lump groups of people together with impunity. I hate people who wear Uggs. I hate people who drive Audis. I hate blondes. I hate baseball players.

Usually those statements are followed by some stupid reason - "I hate baseball players because they are so full of themselves."

In these phrases and contexts, the meaning of hate is water down to be made acceptable in daily terms. However, hate is a powerful word and emotion that has appeared in my worse phrases than "I hate people who drive audis because they are too rich" : I hate Jews. I hate black people. I hate Mexicans.

Merriam-Webster defines hate as "intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury." Hate has been responsible for the worst crimes against humanity through time, including the Holocaust, the genocide in Bosnia, and the Inquisition in the Middle Ages. Hate is blind to reason, sense, or an understanding of individuality among the group. Hate lashes out, hate hurts to hurt, and hate breeds more hate wherever it goes.

Hate has the power to wound, kill, rape and ruin.

Many of us don't realize how often we use the word and how much power it really has. I ask you all, listen to your own language when you speak and don't proliferate hate. Dislike, don't agree with, and don't support the things to your heart's content, but don't hate them.

Here on hubpages, a welcoming and wonderful community, the word is thrown around carelessly just like it is in the physical world. A recent post made me realize how wrong using the word can be, when a hub was posted that preached hating a specific group, and then in ironic symetry, people who disagreeded with the hub claimed to hate people who were racist. How does that make sense?

Because hate breeds hate, even on a small level.

Keep hate out of our community, and work to weed it out of your own life. Everyone should be free to have negative opinions, feelings, and reactions to things. But just chose your words carefully, and understand that hate is a much darker force than you probably mean in regards to people who double park...