Hate ranks as the most overused and abused word in American life.

Think you know someone who hates America? Um, you don’t. Criticizing America is not hating America. Being angry with America for not keeping its promises is not hating America. When you meet a critical, angry American, be sure of this: That American loves America as much as you do.

It’s easy to understand why many Americans frequently raise the phony accusation of hate. This accusation serves as a quick, effective way to avoid listening and learning. To say a fellow American hates America is to dismiss that fellow American, and after the dismissal there’s no need to ponder what she or he says. Some dismiss half the country as haters.

The majority who gathered in downtown Denver and downtown Colorado Springs and downtowns across America this summer are not fueled by hate. Their fuel is hope. They understand a nation that offers vast and matchless promises must live up to those promises.

And they ask vital questions. Why do monuments to Confederate leaders remain all over our southern states? Why continue in 2020 to honor racist traitors of the 19th century? Good questions. Good luck answering them.

I can already hear some of you shouting: What about the destruction?

I ask that question, too. I’ve driven Broadway in Denver and seen the gruesome and obscene graffiti, and it angers me as it angers most of us. But the destructive ones were in the minority among the protesters. My friends marched. My relatives marched. And they, like the majority of these hopeful protesters, did not destroy or paint anything.

They marched in a long American procession. William Lloyd Garrison woke up in the 1830s to the truth slavery was an unspeakable evil, and he dedicated his life to abolishing this great sin of America. He was loud and enraged and had no use for compromise. He was almost killed by an angry, hateful Boston mob in 1835.

Susan B. Anthony woke up to the truth that women deserved equal rights and the vote in her homeland. She was tenacious and articulate and she died disappointed in 1906. The 19th amendment, which finally gave women the right to vote, was not ratified until August, 1920.

John Lewis, who died in July, understood the same truth that inspired Garrison. His parents had taught John to stay out of trouble, but he sought what he called “good trouble” his entire adult life as he battled for the vote and equality for African Americans.

“I have been beaten, my skull fractured, and arrested more than forty times so that each and every person has the right to register and vote,” Lewis wrote on Twitter in 2018.

Garrison, Anthony and Lewis shouted as aggressive critics of America but there’s no question they loved America. Love for country fueled their fight, and love for country can fuel our fight, too.

When a child learns of slavery’s long, horrific history in America, that child is not being taught to hate America. That child is learning the truth of America.

Don’t misunderstand me. That child also must be taught of our matchless promises and the brave women and men who struggled to make those promises come true. “All men are created equal?” We’re not there yet, and we’ll never fully get there. We have struggled to deliver on that promise my entire life and will struggle to reach that mountaintop for the entirety of my grandchildren’s lives.

Thomas Jefferson soared as America’s poet of freedom and equality. He also walked as a forever-puzzling contradiction. He owned slaves, even though he realized he participated in a great evil.

Clay Jenkinson has pondered Jefferson’s life for decades. Each Sunday, he examines Jefferson’s beliefs on the “Thomas Jefferson Hour,” a nationally syndicated radio show heard locally on KRCC-FM.

“He struggled with it,” Jenkinson says of Jefferson’s view of slavery and blacks. “He never overcame it. It was a huge appalling contemptible hypocrisy in his character and outlook.”

It would be wrong to portray Jefferson solely as a slaveholder. He delivered, with the Declaration of Independence, a rationale to dissolve slavery. It would be just as wrong to ignore his appalling contradictions.

And, please, understand this truth: There is no classroom in America where a teacher stands before students and says, “Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and that’s all we need to say about that unsavory character. Now, let’s move on to tearing down another American icon.”

Decades ago, Jefferson’s ownership of slaves was ignored in classrooms. Today that ugly truth about our founding father is told. It’s a required truth, as required as the truth of his visionary greatness.

Discontent is not a blanket excuse for mayhem. I’m appalled by the graffiti that pollutes downtown Denver. The corner of Broadway and Colfax has long soared as our state’s showcase, but this summer it’s a messy, depressing disaster.

I’m appalled by conversational graffiti, too. For some, it’s a common conversational tactic to pin bad intent on protesters who shout in our streets for a better America. Don’t share my political slant? Then you hate America. This is an automatic, lame and dangerous response for millions.

What’s more corrosive to our national fabric? Physical graffiti on buildings? Or conversational graffiti?

I’d hate to say.

Paige Wood Reilly roller skates down Tejon Street during a protest calling for police accountability in downtown Colorado Springs, Colo., on Saturday, August 15, 2020. Protesters gathered outside Mayor John Suthers’ office building, at 30 S. Nevada Avenue, demanding for the termination of Colorado Springs Sgt. Keith Wrede, who used the pseudonym Steven Eric on Facebook and commented “KILL EM ALL” and “KILL THEM ALL” on a livestream video of the Black Lives Matter demonstration on I-25 this past June. Sgt. Wrede, who has been employed by CSPD for 20 years, will be suspended without pay for 40 hours and reassigned to a different unit within the department, according to a police internal affairs report. “It is a violation of the community that he is still serving on the police department,” said Jasmine Marchman, Colorado Springs Oversight co-founder. “We just can’t have people that are hired to serve and protect us who are calling for the extermination of people who have different views than they do,” stated Marchman. (Chancey Bush/ The Gazette)

Chancey Bush, The Gazette

It was a year ago on Monday that De’Von Bailey was shot and killed by a CSPD officer. A group of protesters gathered and marched through the Colorado Springs neighborhood of one of the officers and chanted in front of the officer’s home. Lawrence Stoker, the cousin of De’Von Bailey who was with him when he was shot, leads the crowd through the neighborhood on Monday, August 3, 2020. (Photo by Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette)

JERILEE BENNETT THE GAZETTE