RESPECT.
It's something that I feel...
...has been lost...lately.
I even feel like the definition of respect has been muddied a bit.
Because people have a tendency to apply it
only to accomplishments that they feel are worthy
of praise and admiration.
But, I'm talking about respect on...
...a basic level.
Even if you just boil it down to common human decency;
It's being lost.
The Golden Rule still applies.
You still need to treat people the way that you want to be treated.
And you're seeing it less and less these days.
Because, people have an automatic tendency
to assume that if someone is disagreeing with someone,
they are their enemy,
and they are inherently bad,
and they should be fought.
But, you can disagree with someone and still respect them.
You can even hate someone.
You can hate and abhor their actions.
They are doing terrible things and they need to be hated.
But you still need to treat them with respect.
And that's hard.
And you may even be thinking like "How can you do that?"
"That's not possible."
"If they are a terrible person they deserve to be treated unfairly."
And that's not the way...
...that I want to live.
We're all humans.
And either we are all humans that are equal,
and deserve to be treated as equals,
or we're not.
And I know people are probably going to think that I am speaking too generally about this,
so I want to get specific.
I am talking about this because of the frenzy that is surrounding Felix.
Not "PewDiePie",
"Felix."
And I want to be very clear about something,
Felix is not an anti-Semite and Felix does not advocate hate.
And I am not defending the jokes that he made,
because even he has apologized for some of the "jokes" that he did.
But he, as a person,
as an inherent human being
he is not these "labels."
Because, it's so easy to label someone.
It's so easy to do.
It is so easy to boil someone down to a single word or a phrase;
and that's all they are.
Even if you are praising them,
I mean, normally it's when you're demonizing them,
but even if you are praising them,
even if you are putting someone on a pedestal,
or if you are calling them "human scum",
and "trash" and "garbage,"
you're inherently dehumanizing them in both aspects.
And that's something that I will never stand for.
Never.
'Cause I have said it a million times.
Over and over, I repeat this all the time;
We, as YouTubers, are the exact same as you.
We're humans.
We're...
...people wandering this world
trying to figure out who we are,
just the same as you.
And even though someone like Felix is being attacked
and he's a lightning rod for hate,
whether or not that's a fault of his own actions,
or the society that we live in,
That
doesn't
matter to me.
Because what I'm talking about
is the most basic human element,
the one rule I know very deep down,
is that we are all equal,
and deserve to be treated with respect.
We are more than our labels.
I don't give a FUCK...
...what the color of your skin is,
I don't care what religion you believe in,
I don't care where you have come from or where you are now,
all I care about,
is who,
you
are.
And whether or not you are free to be able to discover that,
And I am not even just talking about Felix now,
I am talking generally.
'Cause if we're ever...
...going to be more than we are right now,
as a society, as people, as a species, as Planet Earth,
if we're ever going to be more than that,
we need to, at the most, BASIC, level...
respect each other.
And it's hard.
It's hard to take the high road.
It's a lonely road.
No one wants to go that way.
'Cause it is so easy to seek vengeance,
or apply the "other rule,"
"an eye for an eye."
Or label someone,
as a simple word or phrase, just to dismiss them.
And, I know, people are gonna even twist my words.
People are going to say that I am defending the wrong people,
or I'm defending "bad" people,
Or I'm spreading hate indirectly
because I support other people.
That's not the way I see the world.
I see...
...each and every one of us.
Not defined by our race, or our creed,
but each and every one of us a new opportunity to find ourselves.
And in order to defend that,
I have to advocate
the treatment of everyone
as an equal.
'Cause if you don't have that,
What's going to become of us?
What's gonna happen in 50 years,
when the generations that follow us look back,
and see that their forefathers
were too afraid
to treat each other with the most basic level of respect?
I believe,
I believe very firmly,
that every single person in the world
has the ability to do something amazing or terrible,
to spread love or hate.
And whether or not they do one or the other depends
on us.
Depends on us,
being strong enough to take the high road
in the face of the worst adversity.
I have so much hope
for people.
I have so much hope
for this world,
and I have so much hope for what we can do
to make it a better place,
and that's something that I will defend to the death.
When it comes
to dehumanizing someone,
or anyone...
I won't stand for that.
Because at the end of the day,
there's going to be people that follow us.
And it's up to you and me,
to show them what respect really means.