What Is It That Bigots Hate? That You Communicate.

Communication is the hallmark of all relationships. You can easily judge the quality of any relationship by how freely the communication flows between its members. When the communication deteriorates, so does the relationship.

But there is no end to the number of barriers that can be placed in front of a person’s attempt to communicate. If someone is trying to talk to you, you can just not be available. Our modern phone systems make this too easy. Or you can shut down the normal lines of communication and hide the new ones. You can also create too much distance for the communication to overcome like “all inquiries must be in person” 2,000 miles away. You can demonize an individual through the press so that no one wants to hear them or is afraid of them. Or you can just drown them out with volume—either quantity or decibels. News interviewers seem to use this a lot.

All Remini is saying is: “don’t hear them” and “don’t let them speak.” She is also calling you too stupid to decide for yourself. And she is failing utterly.

But of all the barriers that stop, prevent or pervert communication, one of the most insidious is bigotry. When you look at bigotry (or more succinctly “hate”) as one person’s desire to ensure the target of the bigotry stops communicating, it makes more sense. If you leave behind all the false reasons why one person hates the other—all the exaggerated justifications, manipulated data and wild accusations—what you have left is a desire to make nothing out of someone so they can no longer communicate. Politicians use terms like “marginalized” or “left behind,” but a better way of stating that is: left with no way to communicate or no one to communicate to.

You could say that Martin Luther King Jr. refused to stop communicating despite every reason bigoted people threw at him. But no, he just kept talking, kept doing. Martin Luther King changed America for the better as much as any person before him. Yes, it took many marches and many years, but it was the continuous communication of his message that made him succeed in the end.

There are a few bigoted people who do not want Scientologists to communicate. Leah Remini would be an example. Here is someone who simply does not want anyone to hear what we have to say. Under any kind of analysis, she is a classic bigot. Her actions are calculated to make us seem “dangerous” or “unusual.” But really all Remini is saying is “don’t hear them” and “don’t let them speak.” She is also calling you too stupid to decide for yourself. And she is failing utterly.

People have asked me why my church has its new TV channel. It is because we desire to communicate. And we want to say what we want to say and say it unimpeded and unaltered. Scientology TV is there so that we can communicate what we believe, show you what those beliefs compel us to do and share the results of our doing what we believe. You can then view it and decide for yourself whether it is good or bad, unimpeded by a noisy bigot. We believe we can change the world with ideas and are changing the world for the better.

I was in one of our churches recently and right over the reception desk in big bold letters was a quote by L. Ron Hubbard that sums this all up very well: “Ideas and not battles mark the forward progress of Mankind.”

So despite the loud and bigoted few, we will keep communicating.

And there is no amount of hate a pesky fly like Leah Remini can muster that will prevent us from getting out our message of betterment, freedom and peace for all.

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AUTHOR

John Allender

Entrepenur, Dad, Scientologist, occasional basketball coach, researcher and a huge Far Side fan.

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