"The land of the free and home of the brave."
Wise words once written by Francis Scott Key.
The wonderful and beautiful America is a land we are blessed to live in. Now that doesn't mean we don't have our downfalls, but being able to say today that this is our country is a wonderful thing. We have fought our way to get to where we are now and never let anything stand in our way for what is right. The list of accomplishments is astounding. From the first women's rights movement in Seneca Falls, New York to the walk of freedom with Martin Luther King Jr. We have come together through the hardest times no matter our background and that is something to be proud of.
Today everything we have fought for is being lost. The fights are turning into large riots and relationships are starting to end. You can blame the 2016 election but it is really us. Over these past few days, I have seen friends call each other racists, bigots, idiots, childish, and the list goes on. Vandalism and attacks have just started when they should never have happened in the first place. Now, I know this is not every protestor and every supporter but this is still happening. I see hate every single time I go on Facebook and every time I turn on the news.
The fact is that Donald Trump is our newly elected president. What is great is the fact that you don't have to like him and we can freely protest against what he says or does but we should not let the disagreement of who are president is get in the way of who we are as a country. In the past when it is needed we have come together in peace for the common good. Yes, there will always be those against what is being said there will even be some against what I am saying now. But instead of being hateful towards each other and beating each other down we need to bring each other up. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." Now is the time to fight for what we believe in but that doesn't mean shooting someone else down.
I have heard some say that they are losing hope for this country. But hope is the one thing that will keep us together and it shouldn't be lost. Hope for a better country is what we are fulled by. While we have seen extreme actions being taken, the actions are caused by passion. Whether or not you believe in protesting, protesting is what this country is built on. We protested to become our own country away from Britain. We have protested our way to our own basic rights. Don't lose hope just because what is being protested is something you do not believe in. These protests are fulled by passion. And passion is what makes America great because we fight for what is right. But it is not right to shame one another no matter the belief. You can't fight fire with fire. The hate and the mockery will get us nowhere.
We are the change and we are what makes this country so great.
