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Disapproval of Walker is not hate

I had an interesting experience while on a shopping trip to a local business on July 2.

When I returned to my car after shopping, I found a note under my windshield wiper. The note read, “How can you Hate Walker but ENDHATE (my Wisconsin license plate) at the same time?”

I feel obliged to answer the question, hoping the writer who failed to show the simple courtesy of leaving a name, address, or phone number may read this letter. It’s easy to make statements of this nature when you choose not to engage with the person you address.

There is a huge difference between hate and disapproval of someone for how they operate. I have a sticker on my car that criticizes Walker as bad for public education and that I and others should work to remove him in 2014. Nowhere on the sticker does the word hate occur. Just because I disapprove of Walker, as governor, doesn’t mean I hate him. I could say that I hate people who leave unsigned notes, but I don’t. I just find them somewhat amusing and perhaps weak.

When I was a teenager in Korea during the war, I learned about hate. I also learned about hate when I participated in civil rights demonstrations at Southern Illinois University. I learned about hate when I was virtually chased out of Little Rock, Ark., because I was traveling with a black friend. I experienced hate when I refused to eat in the whites-only side of a restaurant in Richmond,Virg., and drank out of a water fountain designated for blacks.

Hate Walker? Not at all. However, he has given me and many others ample reasons to strongly disapprove of his actions.

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