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Wherever we go, we go with our book, “How To Like People Who Are Not Like You.” A recent review of our book called it a “formula for building human beings”. They said our book is “profoundly simple and simply profound”. They said it should be in every library in America. Believing that self-hatred is the root cause of all problems between people, we first teach people how to like themselves, so that we may then teach them to like people of other races and religions. We range in age from under 20 to more than 80. Our young give us energy and audacity. Our old give us wisdom and perspective. Our middle-aged give us contacts and influence. All are equally necessary to our success. Rather than divisiveness in our racial and religious diversity, we find unity. Our lives are energized and given direction by our personal faiths. Because our faith means much to us, we also endorse the right of all people to believe as their conscience leads, and behave as taught by those wise and loving souls who first gave voice to their faith. People of all faiths are welcome. Though we have entered the household of faith through different doors, we are alike in that we recognize and seek to organize our lives aroud spiritual principles. Within each of us burns a spark of goodness and genius, requiring only that others see it in us for it to appear. HateBusters see that spark. Invite me and I will come. Join me and we will win. Our MissionOur mission as HateBusters is to create an atmosphere of peace and quiet among racial and religious groups in America. It may be a stretch, but I think the results of HateBusters are like the "pin drop" results from Sprint--clarity of communication on an important subject. The mayor of my home town (Liberty) and the governor of my home state (Missouri) are supporters of HateBusters. Mayor Hawkins has written to mayors of each state capitol city and Governor Carnahan wrote to each of our other 49 state governors and the governors of our two territories to describe my dream of being invited to every capitol city by the mayor of the city and the governor of the state. More than a dozen governors already have invited me. I’m calling this campaign Fifty Centuries in America for the Human Family Reunion. The term "century" refers to a 100-mile bike ride, which will be part of each visit. HateBusters was born that autumn morning in 1988 when I picked up the morning paper and read that a Klansman had been elected to the Legislature in Louisiana. Newspaper in hand, I walked into my Race Relations class at William Jewell College. "Class, a terrible thing has happened. The people of a neighboring state have been embarrassed. We must do something to help them redeem themselves. But I don't know what to do." Out of our talk came a song, a shirt, a logo, a project and an organization. Ghost Busters was a hit song that year; it morphed into HateBusters. We got sunny yellow T-shirts, put a frowning face with a line through it on the shirt, wrote HateBusters above the face and began to wear the shirts everywhere. The governor invited us to come to Louisiana. We went. These 11 years later, we are a 501 c-3 non-profit organization. We charge no fees. We never say no when asked for help. "Invite us and we will come. Join us and we will win." This is our promise to everyone, everywhere. We are invited by middle schools, junior highs, high schools, Job Corps, colleges, churches, synagogues, civic clubs, businesses, prisons, and ordinary citizens who hear about us and think we can help. Using our book, How To Like People Who Are Not Like You, we teach people how first to like themselves so they can then learn to like people of other races and religions. We teach people what they need to believe, think about and do in order to like themselves, their friends and family and people of other races and religions. We also teach people how to oppose hate. What to do when someone burns a cross. How to respond when picketers come with hateful signs. Every few weeks, HateBusters receives a phone call from someone who has been a victim of some hateful act. We are asked to come and help. We never say no. Someone burned a cross on a black family’s lawn last year on Martin Luther King’s birthday. The family called us. Angry picketers came to an area college. Campus administrators and city police asked our help. Picketers came to a seminary. The president asked us to help. Thousands of students in schools across the country have been inspired and encouraged by our program. Typical responses:
Here is what I have in mind. I’m thinking that I could arrive in each capitol city in the afternoon and be available to speak somewhere that night. On my first full day there, I would like to appear in as many schools as possible, with another meeting that evening. The second day would be devoted to the century (100 mile) bike ride, with brief stops along the route to tell everyone I can about the Human Family Reunion. Day three I would visit with civic, business and faith communities about my dream of going to all 50 state capitols. That evening we would have our Human Family Reunion. I would fly away the next morning. I will write a book about all the wonderful things we do together in capitol cities across America. I know this Fifty Centuries Campaign is very ambitious, but with help it can be done. If everyone who reads this message will work to get me invited to the capitol city of their state, it will work. Invite me and I will come. Join me and we will win. Our PlanOne From One Equals A Million “Invite us and we will come. Join us and we will win.” This is what we HateBusters say to everyone. We are currently small in number and have little money. We have a book called, “How To Like People Who Are Not Like You”. We teach its concepts by invitation across the country and around the world. We have a motto: Red and Yellow, Black, Brown and White Now we need members and money. If we HateBusters are to become big league players in these soon-to-be Twenty-first Century Gladiator Games, we must have both. So here’s the plan. It’s so simple that when I have told it to you, you will think there must be more. So accustomed have we become to complicated plans and programs and promises, that we are tone deaf to the sound of simplicity. Anything simple must be simple-minded, we seem to think, and the one who proposes a simple thing is himself a simpleton. Not so. HateBusters see life as it should be. Every person on the planet is precious. Each of us can become a World Class Person, able to go anyplace at anytime and talk to anyone about anything and feel safe. More than 40 million people have sat in darkened theaters around the world, enraptured by the stage version of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. When the revolution has failed, and most of his friends have been killed, Marius stands to sing the haunting, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.” In “Man of La Mancha” Don Quixote mounts a failed crusade in the face of human cruelty. So also failed the noble experiment of King Arthur at “Camelot.” Yet these three musicals transport the millions who have seen them , and the many millions more who have been moved by their music, to realms of life beyond the daily suspicions and ordinary limitations which shackle our lives like quarry slaves at night. Better to fail in heroic struggle than to succeed at lesser things. HateBusters likely will fail, but it will be a failure in league with those listed above. And in league with that 1950’s black and white western movie called High Noon, where Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly face a gang of killers in the hot sun of midday and save their town. One million people each send one dollar to HateBusters. This is my plan. Not only will we then have a million dollars, allowing us to endow our 501 C-3 nonprofit operation and ensure our performance for years to come, we will have one million people across America who know about us, believe in us, and assist in our task. If you will send your name and address with your dollar, then when we are invited to come near where you live, we will notify you so you may join with us. If you send more than one dollar, please also send one name for each dollar. People and money in equal proportion: This is our HateBusters formula for winning the struggle against those forces of hatred and bigotry that menace our living together in peace and harmony. One (Dollar) From One (Million People) Please send your dollar(s) and name(s) to: HateBusters 5 IdeasFive ideas. 1. Come Let Me Teach Us To Love the City Once a week bring someone from a racial, religious, ethnic or
neighborhood organization to campus to meet and talk with students and staff. We would
need to pick a time when folks on campus could be available for about an hour. Maybe
lunch? Maybe breakfast? Maybe for a class? Maybe during work time when staff could come to
hear and talk and count it as part of their job. Living and working in the Information Age
as we do, I think we could easily package this coming of the community to campus as job
training for our staff and as academic course work for our students. Maybe Will Rogers
described more than himself when he said he never met a man he didn’t like. Maybe
also he might have said, "I never liked a man I hadn’t met." By bringing
portions of the community to campus on a regular basis, we begin to know and then learn to
love our neighbor. 2. Come Let Me Teach The City To Love Us Several times a week I will visit racial, religious, ethnic and neighborhood organizations in metropolitan Kansas City. I will tell them about our HateBusters HeadQuarters and our Church and Clergy Against Race Violence programs and projects here on campus. I will ask them to tell me how Central Seminary might minister to their needs. I will invite them to become part of our Human Family Reunion. To everyone I will give a business card with our name and address. I will create a page on my HateBusters web site for every organization I contact. I will publish a complimentary HateBusters Bulletin about each place I visit. My intent in doing this is to tie together these disparate organizations and individuals by bringing them to the point where the one thing they do have in common is Central Seminary. We will at that point have become Central to the moral and spiritual life of metropolitan Kansas City in a more immediate and more tangible way than ever before, a way that might well come to be known across the nation as the Kansas City Central Model, a model that might well attract the attention of foundations, organizations and individuals with the money and vision to make what we do into the major undertaking it deserves to be. 3. Clergy and Church Against Race Violence Church and Clergy Against Race Violence is a small and informal group of Wyandotte County ministers concerned about the cross burning and hate mail that have occurred in recent months in KCK. We know that churches in our community condemn hateful behavior and seek to minister to those hurt by hate. So that THE CHURCH might minister most effectively to those hurt by hate, we are writing to each of the 278 churches in Wyandotte County. We are asking for some information that will help us organize a united and effective response to the next hateful action that embarrasses and threatens our community. Our directory of church addresses was obtained from the local United Way. Some churches have, no doubt, changed pastors since our list was compiled. If we do not have the correct name for your current pastor, would you please write the correct name on the enclosed form? Please also note the current phone number. Fax numbers and e-mail addresses if available. This letter also seeks to know the level of involvement you and your church would like to have in the battle against hate violence here in our county, our city and our community. Since its founding in 1901, Central Baptist Theological Seminary has sought to enrich the spiritual life of our nation and our world. We seek also to minister to the spiritual needs of our KCK neighbors. Our seminary family has been hurt by the hate we have witnessed in our community, and in seeking to minister to those others hurt by that hate, we have asked Church and Clergy Against Race Violence to become part of our ministry to the community. Central will provide office space, staff support and funding. We are praying that all churches in Wyandotte County might seize this opportunity to unite in the fight to stop the hate that now and then erupts in our midst. Please call us if anything we have told you in our letter is unclear. We would love to talk to you on the phone or in person. May peace, power, purpose and joy be with all of us each day and may we in unison spread it to everyone in our city and county. Background HateBusters was born that autumn morning in 1988 when I picked up the morning paper and read that a Klansman had been elected to the Legislature in Louisiana. Newspaper in hand, I walked into my Race Relations class at William Jewell College. "Class, a terrible thing has happened. The people of a neighboring state have been embarrassed. We must do something to help them redeem themselves. But I don't know what to do. . Out of our talk came a song, a shirt, a logo, a project and an organization. Ghost Busters was a hit song then; it morphed into HateBusters. We got sunny yellow T-shirts, put a frowning face with a line through it on the shirt, wrote HateBusters above the face and began to wear the shirts everywhere. These 11 years later, we are a 501 c-3 non-profit. Program Operation "Invite us and we will come. Join us and we will win." This is our promise to everyone, everywhere. We are invited by middle schools, junior highs, high schools, Job Corps, colleges, churches, synagogues, civic clubs, businesses, prisons, and ordinary citizens who hear about us and think we can help. Using our book, we teach people how first to like themselves so they can then learn to like people of other races and religions. We teach people what they need to believe, think about and do in order to like themselves, their friends and family and people of other races and religions. We also teach people how to oppose hate. What to do when someone burns a cross. How to respond when picketers come with hateful signs. Outcomes Thousands of students in schools across the country have been inspired and encouraged by our program. Typical responses: "Your story telling captures our hearts and minds. You are inspiring, awesome and thought provoking.." "I’ve never heard anyone talk/think like this. I hope that this way of living catches on. This is brilliant. Please don’t stop what you’re doing. It is a niche that has long needed to be filled for literally centuries. If there is ever anything I can do, please let me know! Come back again, please." "I have never heard a speaker talk with such love and dedication. I feel very excited and alive. I want to work harder changing my own behavior. I feel a rebirth." "You are blessed with a gift to bring people together. You are blessed with a gift to fight a physical condition. You are blessed with the ability to touch other people and make them aware of their potential." The governor of my state and the mayor of my town have written to their counterparts in every state capitol in America to tell them about my dream and to ask them to invite me. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha’is and other faith groups welcome my visits. Red and Yellow, Black, Brown and White: All people are precious in my sight. When I biked that summer alone and without money from Orlando to Seattle to Los Angeles, I met an America that inspired and encouraged me. Now I dream of an instant replay in capitol cities all across these United States. Here is my dream. I arrive the capitol city in the afternoon and am available to speak somewhere that night. On my first full day there, I appear in as many schools as possible to teach my book, How To Like People Who Are Not Like You., with another meeting that evening. The second day is devoted to the century (100 mile) bike ride, with brief stops along the route to tell everyone I see about the Human Family Reunion. Day three I visit with civic, business and faith communities about my dream of going to all 50 state capitols. That evening we have our Human Family Reunion. I fly away the next morning. I write a book about all the wonderful things we do together in capitol cities across America. You may wonder how a bike ride came to be part of my campaign to teach people how to like people and how to oppose hate. It all started that day years ago in my hospital room when that doctor said I have Multiple Sclerosis and couldn’t be active. He was wrong. My MS means I must be active: 10,000 miles a year on a bicycle is my goal. If I ride, I can run; if I don’t, I can’t walk. So I ride. And when people ask about my bike, I segue quickly into my HateBusters message. The bike keeps my body in shape. This mission of mine is medicine for my heart, mind and soul. "Invite me and I will come. Join me and we will win." This is my promise to everyone, everywhere. I am invited by middle schools, junior highs, high schools, Job Corps, colleges, churches, synagogues, civic clubs, businesses, prisons, and ordinary citizens who hear about me and think I can help. Using my book, How To Like People Who Are Not Like You, I teach people how first to like themselves so they can then learn to like people of other races and religions. I teach people what they need to believe, think about and do in order to like themselves, their friends and family and people of other races and religions. I also teach people how to oppose hate. What to do when someone burns a cross. How to respond when picketers come with hateful signs. Every few weeks, I receive a phone call from someone who has been a victim of some hateful act. I am asked to come and help. I never say no. Someone burned a cross on a black family’s lawn on Martin Luther King’s birthday. The father called me. Angry picketers came to an area college. Campus administrators and city police asked my help. Picketers came to a seminary. The president called me. If you think people in your town would like to ride with me for all or part of my century when I come to visit, please write about all of this so they will know and can make plans. If someone there would want to hear what I have to say, all they must do is ask. I charge no fees, but I do have expenses. I ask people to help me and they do. I never so no to any request.
I need your help. I want to be invited by churches. Please spread the word. Invite me and I will come. Join me and we will win. I go to teach people how to like people, how to oppose hate and how to become a World Class Person. Our History Founder of HateBusters-Ed Chasteen “Our message is profoundly simple and simply profound. We teach people to like themselves, their family and friends, and people of other races and religions.” How We Began . . . Ed Chasteen wasn’t your typical college professor. At William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, where he taught cultural anthropology, Chasteen provided students with real-life lessons that exceeded the boundaries of classroom and campus. Rather than just lecture about tolerance, harmony and sociological and cultural differences, Chasteen decided to energize and challenge students by dedicating his life as an example for them to follow. He decided that if people sought to eliminate hatred in the world, then each of us had to stop talking and act on this belief. Taking personal responsibility for correcting the problem sums up Chasteen’s creed and that of others who agree with and follow him. It’s what led Chasteen to form Human Family Reunions, multicultural potluck dinners, in Kansas City in 1976. It’s also what led to the formation of HateBusters, begun by Chasteen and William Jewell students. HateBusters uses nonviolent civil rights methods, similar to those employed in the 1960ís, to bring about social and attitude changes and challenge organized or spontaneous eruptions of hatred wherever they strike. Chasteen told a Kansas City Star reporter, “I have never met a hater who didn’t first hate him or herself.” (reprinted from Kansas City STAR newspaper 3/14/97) Our SongWhen there's hate growin' in your neighborhood, who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! When it's gettin' mean and it don't look good, who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! I ain't afraid of no hate I ain't afraid of no hate When you're seein' hate runnin' all around, who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! Your lookin' for help, but it can't be found, who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! I ain't afraid of no hate Don't be afraid of no hate Who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! All alone Pick up the phone And call HATEBUSTERS!!! I ain't afraid of no hate I hate the likes of hate Don't be afraid of no hate Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! Let me tell ya something Bustin' makes me feel good I ain't afraid of no hate Don't be afraid of no hate You are not alone, no no HATEBUSTERS!!! When hate comes through your door, unless you just want some more, I think ya better call... HATEBUSTERS!!! Who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! Who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! Who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! Who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! I can't hear you! Who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! Louder! HATEBUSTERS!!!!!! Who ya gonna call? HATEBUSTERS!!! Just call us! HATEBUSTERS!!! Invite us and we will come. --- Our Practice --- --- Our Dream --- --- Our Address --- |
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