Anatomy of Hate (Diversity and Cultural Event)

I attended Anatomy of Hate last Thursday (3/25/10) at the HUC. This was a viewing of the documentary "The Anatomy of Hate" by Mike Ramsdell. In the documentary, people from extremists groups were interviewed about their beliefs. The main groups interviewed in the film were Neo-Nazis, a church group with strong hate toward homosexuals, Palinstian and Isreali people who showed hatred for each other, and US troops in Iraq. The main message I got from the film was that putting a face on the enemy will decrease dehumanization and hate.
There was a dialoque after the showing of the documentary with four panelists; two from Life 180 which is a Christian organization at UAB, and two from Birmingham Freethought Society which is an organization for athiests and agnostics. This discussion was extremely interesting because only one person in the audience was not able to have a civilized conversation with people that had different beliefs than he did; so besides that one incident, everyone was really accepting to different opinions and I think it was a good discussion.
This was different from my own everyday culture because I normally avoid touchy topics like religion with people because I assume the conversation will just get ugly if we disagree. So, I learned that most people are way more accepting to different opinions and beliefs than I had initially thought. This preconceived notion of close-mindedness probably comes from me being from a small town where most people are closed-minded; if you were anything except Southern Baptist, you were just wrong. I was a participant-observer at this event, because I did not engage in the discussion, I just listened and enjoyed. Also, I think the idea of a holistic approach is applicable for describing this event because it was emphasized to view people as who they are as an individual and not just label them because of their religion, sexual orientation, ect.; we were encouraged to learn about the whole person rather than judging them based on one aspect of their life.