Labels and Hate It is easy to hate an idea or a label, it is easy to pass judgement. It is harder to hate a person. Regardless of your politics, the image of the young boy with the head wound, looking completely shell-shocked, is an image of someone that people can not hate. The human inside each of us wants to help, take the pain away, and give comfort. As soon as the focus is changed from a young boy to a “Syrian refugee boy” or “Muslim refugee boy,” the tone changes for some people. When labels are applied and used instead of the person’s name, it becomes easy to hate or not identify with the human underneath the label. When the label Muslim is applied without regard to the human subject, it is easy to hate, easy to dismiss, easy to discriminate, it defines the line between my-group and not-my-group. Application of a label only masks the person, the human, behind it. If you think this is not the case, replace Muslim with Roman Catholic--those Roman Catholic refugees need