This election was a special one to say the least. Both candidates didn’t seem appealing to most and some even voted for one candidate over the other just because they liked the candidate a tad more or because they just didn’t want the opposing side in charge of our country.
If there is one lesson to take away from this election it would that there are some issues rising in America that deserve our undivided attention.
A college student named Anthony was one of the many exited to participate in Election Day for the first time.
“I guess I was confident that Hilary would win just because of how the news cycle was showing the election,” he said. “I was treating it like a regular day, but it was also cool because it was the first time a lot of our generation could vote. It was like taking a test I was ready for.”
“Did you feel good about your vote?” I asked Anthony.
“Yes,” he said. “It was fun and really cool because I never really paid attention to politics until a year and a half ago. It was cool to go from being like ‘I don’t care about politics’ to reading on who we want to elect and forming my own opinions.”
Anthony’s experience on Election Day turned sour when he made a post on Facebook expressing joy about getting to vote for the first time and getting to wear the ‘I Voted’ sticker proudly through out the day. He hoped his post would encourage others to vote, but it ended up getting a bad perspective from one of his Facebook friends.
“It turned out to be someone I went to high school with, and she interpreted the post as me taking the process of voting for granted and not taking the election seriously and saying I shouldn’t have the right to vote because she felt I was doing it for a sticker.”
“A part of me feels like the sticker does have significance especially for first time voters,” Anthony said. “Plus everybody else was posting pictures with stickers and we have a lot of the same friends, so I don’t know why my post was the only one she posted on. It was irritating at first. I commented back letting her know it wasn’t intended to be received that way.”
Things got worse from there when Anthony’s family and friends started commenting on the post either being serious or sarcastic about the sticker which led to the girl using racial slurs as a response and then deleting the post only seconds later, but not soon enough for Anthony to screenshot her attack and make another post about it.
“This shows a lot,” he said. “It shows how ugly this election is and has been. It shows that racism in America is very much alive and that we need to work harder to move forward and people need to start listening.”
This election has definitely been scary and has shown the divide our country is dealing with right now. Talk has circled around the idea of a revolution. As scary and ridiculous as that might seem, it may be the best thing our country needs to establish that things have changed and they need to keep changing in order for many to feel safe and welcome in this country.
It baffles and angers me that racism is rising up again in America. Our country has made so much progress whether it be acceptance of race or of other matters like sexual identity. If our revolution of open arms is taken for granted it would lead this country in the opposite direction of where it should go.
