“I propose to take our countrymen’s claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard.” - Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Between the World and Me"

My family has lived in the same peaceful slice of Midwestern suburbia since I was three years old. I grew up with cornfields and pumpkin patches, hot air balloon landings in backyards and nights sleeping under the stars on my house’s back deck. The only time I felt afraid to go outside was when there were rumors of a black bear roaming around town. (Still not sure if there was actually a bear, or if this was a suburban tall tale.)

One cul-de-sac away from us lived a family whose skin tones were much darker than my own. They moved in when I was five years old, and I never thought it was strange that they looked so different from the rest of our neighbors. Throughout the next few years, a Pakistani family and a Russian family, as well as a married couple from Iran and Vietnam, moved in next door. My family became fairly good friends with the married couple, whose children were a little younger than my sister and me. I remember hearing some whispered conversations among kids and adults alike about the Iranian father being Muslim, but I didn’t pay much attention, having never heard the term “Muslim” before. Their children, our Jewish friend down the street, and our Catholic friends across the street played together without any fuss.

The first time I began to develop a sense of “otherness” in regard to race and religion was in eighth grade. I attended a private school about 20 minutes away from home; the school is located in a church built in the early 1900s, situated in what was 100 years ago an affluent area. The school itself offers incredible academics, with a focus on college-style education, but I would never expect to find it in the middle of a seemingly ill-fated town. Every week in the neighborhood around the school, there were shootings, stabbings and drug busts. It was inevitable every summer that the school’s AC unit was stolen at least once. As my mom drove us to school each morning, we passed houses sinking into their foundations, boarded up, often with scorch marks around the windows, frequently with “Caution: Condemned” signs on the doors.

Most of the crime in the area was attributed to African Americans and immigrants. The town still has a heavy concentration of refugees, mostly from eastern Africa, and there was a sense of tension in the surrounding neighborhoods that even an eighth grader found hard to miss. I began to hear hateful terms, which I was warned not to repeat, come from the mouths of my elders, whom I was always taught to respect.

One of my older relatives told me, in words that I won’t repeat exactly, that African Americans were ruining the areas around the local shopping centers by causing all of the recent robberies and living on welfare. Even now, it’s hard to write about the bitterness that I encountered long ago because it was so deeply surprising at the time. As Christians, my parents brought me up to treat everyone with love and respect, but many people blatantly chose contempt for their neighbors.

Another area of contention was the local mosque, recently built a few miles away from my house. The mosque’s golden dome and white stone minarets stood in stark contrast to the church steeples nearby, and I heard many hushed conversations about the building and its meaning. One of my friends told me that her mother had told her that mosques were a sign of jihad, essentially Muslims shaking their fists at Christians. Tensions between the Middle East and the United States were funneled down to a local level, in which all Muslims became a shadowy enemy actively trying to overthrow the American way of life. Never mind that I and many of my friends had never seen, met or had a conversation with a Muslim person.

Fast forward a few years to my parents dropping me off at college on the East Coast. Tucked away on a mountainside, hidden by forests and shadows of early sunsets, lies Nyack College, a school founded by the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Just thirty minutes away is New York City, and ten minutes away is the eclectic and multifarious city of Nyack. To put it nicely, I was more than a little unprepared for the religious and ethnic diversity that this area of New York displays proudly, like a badge of honor earned in war. Going to the nearby Palisades Mall shocked me, as women in burqas, Hasidic Jewish families and massive church youth groups rubbed shoulders with each other at every turn.

Even stranger was Nyack College itself. During chapel services, I at first felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb, attending services with elements of charismatic Christianity, high church liturgy and Protestantism. I sat in class with people from Indonesia and Russia; I ate lunch with kids from Queens and the Bronx, and I worked with students from Poland and Honduras. Some of my best friends from college are African Americans, some are from different areas of Asia and some are second-generation Americans whose parents immigrated from Puerto Rico or Cuba. A few miles away from the college, I interviewed a Hindu priest about his religious practices and I attended an observation session of transcendental yoga at Nyack’s New Age Center.

How I wish I could go back to my younger self and say, “The things you’re hearing about African Americans? What your classmates are saying about Muslims? Hateful statements are born out of fear and misunderstanding.” It’s become increasingly evident, especially in recent months, that people fear that “otherness,” racially, ethnically, socially or religiously, will translate into a loss of their own identities.

I myself am an American Christian, and I think other cultures and religions hold aspects of beauty and dignity. I don’t want to disparage my part of the Midwest, and I don’t want to genuflect to the more liberal tendencies of the northeastern United States. However, I do think that many Americans should learn that mutual respect does not equate to social or cultural deterioration. A spirit of love, not of fear, needs to reside within us. Although these issues will likely to continue to exist in some form, it is the perspective you develop, the love you have and the voice you use that matters.