I felt the drop in my stomach last night when Donald Trump began sweeping the polls. I felt the fear of what that meant for me as a woman. I thought about what that meant for all of my friends, LGBTQ+, Latino, Muslim, Black, everyone. I shared my fears with my boyfriend for what this would do to our rights, to how people treat each other, to who we become as a nation. I felt the pain. I felt upset by my friends who put their faith in someone I did not believe in. But I did not publicly shame them.
I thought we were fighting against being negative, being disruptive and condemning others. I thought that the hateful comments Trump spewed across our televisions was what so many of us voted against. I thought that keeping peace alive and fighting for everyone's right to freedom was our goal here. But your Facebook status calling people who voted third party or for Trump "disgusting" or "ignorant" or "a sore on society" is exactly what we voted against.
You have every single right to be upset. You have every single right to voice that concern or to voice your opinion on how someone voted. But you owe it to humanity to do so in a decent way. We are potentially about to lose a lot of respect in this country. We are probably going to see vicious remarks from our own president. We are going to see nasty and hateful words come from those in America who now have fuel and a figure to support their fire. So how can we possibly sit back and continue putting more of that hate into the world?
Voting third party was someone's choice. They felt good about putting their vote somewhere they believed in. Not voting at all was also someone's choice. A poor one in my opinion? Yes. But their choice. Voting for Trump as a woman, husband, father or person does not make sense to me. But it was their choice.
I encourage keeping the conversation going. We need to continue talking about what this means for our country and keeping our eyes open to the changes that will come. But if we want to fight against the negative, shameful comments that we are going to be seeing a lot more of, we cannot do so by throwing that hate right back at them.
Martin Luther King said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Keep your voices going. Be as loud as you need to and fight for what you believe in. But use your knowledge, education and words to create a strong argument, not to spew hate. Use your social media platforms to put yourself on your side of history, but don't use your words to condemn another. We have a lot coming for us. Let's be better than the rest of the people we have spent the last year fighting against.
