Hate: Timeless Lessons I Learned from the Twilight Zone

I love the simplicity, yet complexity of the Twilight Zone series narrated by Rod Serling. With such simple sets and low-cost effects, powerful stories are delivered in black and white that still ring true in our time, just as they did back when they were made. Although not all of the episodes deliver a moral at the end of the story, there are glimpses of ethics, social justice, and morality sprinkled throughout. They make the watcher stop and think about situations from new perspectives.

With this said, I recently watched a Twilight Zone episode titled, I am the Night -- Color Me Black, written by Rod Serling that first aired in 1964. The episode got me to thinking a lot about hate and how I treat my fellow man. The plot follows a man who is being hanged after he is wrongfully convicted for killing a racist in self defense. The townspeople have gathered to watch the execution delighted to have a convict removed from their town. But on this day, the sun doesn't come up and the darkness is thick and tangible in the air. The man is hanged, and later in the show, a radio broadcast is heard delivering the news that many other towns around the world were facing unexplained darkness as well. The disturbances could not be explained and were showing up in North Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, Birmingham, Alabama, and other places where hate was evident in the world.

What struck me while watching this Twilight Zone episode is the powerful effects that hate has upon us and those around us. At one point, a character in this story states that the darkness being felt by all was the hate choking up out of their hearts because of their strong hate toward the man being executed. It made me think about my own experiences and how at times it is a lot easier to hate as opposed to forgiving someone for a wrong. It is a lot easier to hate, rather than work toward finding a common understanding. Hate is easy, but love is a commitment.

At one point in this episode, Reverend Anderson steps up to protest the hanging of the man, but he is quickly shoved aside as the townspeople are excited to see justice served. Jagger, the man being hanged says, "It's important to get with the majority, isn't it? That's....that's a big thing nowadays, isn't it Reverend?" The Reverend responds by saying, " That's all there is, just the majority. The minority must have died on the cross two thousand years ago." This is not in reference to races, but to the thought patterns of the people in the town. The Reverend realizes that the majority, those who were deciding to hate, had won and that darkness was surrounding the town in a cloak of darkness.

What is the majority telling us? What thought patterns, practices, or social habits have become the majority? Why do we continue to listen to it? As the character states, it is important to get with the majority, or sometimes bad things can happen to you, but why do we keep following the majority if it proliferates hate, contempt, or malice toward our fellow man? I refuse to believe that the minority is dead and gone. I want to be part of the minority, or that group of people, who are not afraid to stand on behalf of others, to make a wrong right, to choose love over hate. Let's make the minority the majority. Just a few thoughts from the Twilight Zone.

Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734577/