å Wednesday, December 6th, 2017

In her piece, “Affective Economies”, Sara Ahmed tries to explain the idea that people who are hateful aren’t truly hateful, they’re perceived or viewed differently because these people wish to protect something they love and cherish deeply. She says hate isn’t an true or primary emotion rather a byproduct when one feels that something they valued is being threaten. I feel like Sara makes a really good and valid point there, people don’t naturally hate on something or someone but do so when they feel like someone or something is going to changed or impact their interest negatively. She brings up the example of how the general view of America on immigrants isn’t that great, nationalists don’t really hate immigrants for who they are but the possibility they are going to take jobs, ruin society, and overall destroy their idea of the perfect nation. While these accusations may or may not be true, its the possibility that causes people to fear and hate theses groups of people coming in. Its fear and love that evokes hate, thinking of such makes me think of the quote, “Only thing we have to fear is fear itself” by FDR. She goes on bringing up another example of a white child seeing a black man shivering and immediately assume that it was an act of aggression, the child now who afraid of the black man goes on while the black man is now contained as he’s afraid of the actions that follow after for scaring the little boy. In this event, the two become divided, in a  way they both fear each other forcing them to walk down different paths. Sara also talks about how people see others and immediately assume that one is a threat without thinking about it even if its irrational. We judge and assess others subconsciously she says, from what we have experienced and been taught we naturally make the thought. One example would be if one got into an accident where he or she fell into the sea, as they grow up they see the sea they would immediately connect that to the accident they had years ago. This is also true when it comes to people, if we had a terrible experience with a group of people we would think about it as soon as we see someone from that group. We’re all guilty of such as it is baked into our minds.