Remember in third or fourth grade when there were those kids who would not stop goofing off and caused the whole class to not go to recess? Maybe you were one of those kids goofing off. Regardless, it wasn’t exactly fair.

Casting the blame unfairly is a problem a bit bigger than just whether a bunch of third graders get to go to recess. There have been numerous examples throughout history of blaming a whole group for the actions of single individuals. Japanese internment camps. Prejudice toward Muslim immigrants.

Possibly the largest reason for this is judgement. It is so easy for a judgemental mindset to turn into persecution. All it takes is for the bully on the playground to make a single judgement and all of a sudden, that kid playing by himself is miserable.

One form of judgment is generalization. An encounter with a single person can cause unfair and inaccurate assumptions about the group they are associated with.

People want to place the blame somewhere. We need something (or someone) to take our anger and frustration out on. A student who gets a bad grade might blame their teacher. An employee might blame an associate for getting the promotion they deserved.

A lot of hate and pain comes from placing the blame on someone who hasn’t done anything wrong. While it can hurt the recipients of that hate both physically and emotionally, it can be just as painful for the one casting the blame.

Maybe the lives of those third graders who didn’t get to go to recess weren’t ruined. But many peoples’ will be if we don’t stop placing the blame on the innocent.