In the midst of all of the hatred in the world today my sister and I recently had the conversation of where we stand in our beliefs and values. As Christians, and specifically Baptists, we were taught from an early age that certain lifestyles that individuals chose to live did not always please God -- some Baptist wording there. Growing up in church they told us all of the things not to do but in a small South Georgia town those "not to do" things were never a presence anyway. Being raised in a Baptist Church is one of the greatest things I could have asked for and many of my beliefs hold strong in my Christian faith. Also as a Christian, it is our job to love and that is the small part that I have seen people forget about when faced with diversity in our world today.
In small-town South Georgia, there were not many people that we didn't know which church that they were members of. Attending of different schools and churches was about as much diversity as we were faced with. To give you a real idea of where I'm from, 59.6% of the population are white and 36.9% black or African American, that leaves 3.5% for people of another race. Less than four percent!
I never knew people that were members of different religions, members of non-religious groups, or members of the LGBT community, or at least openly a part of it. Growing up, this was the norm, there was not much diversity so there were no other lifestyles that we had to accept and not many people of other groups to broaden our experiences. It was not until I got to college that I had close friends that were members of other groups that I had not previously been introduced to. To me, these friends were no different from my small town friends and I have my parents to thank for allowing me to see that.
My parents always let my sister and I choose. They never forced hate of any group on us. They never said that we should not associate with certain people. They never mentioned race, religion, descent, sex, or any other characteristic of an individual as a reason to either lift up or look down on a person.
My parents never said anything that would give me a negative idea of someone. My parents never told me that someone should be treated as less than me. My parents never told me to hate someone.
What my parents did was treat everyone with kindness and respect and that is where I developed my values. In a town that has no diversity they taught me how to accept, and love everyone. In a place that it would have been so easy to say "anyone not like us is bad," they always did the opposite.
Unfortunately, not everyone gets this opportunity. You don't even have to be from a small South Georgia town to have been exposed forced hate and negativity. It is becoming more and more apparent that hate is everywhere in our great nation. And these past few weeks especially have shown us more hatred and hard hearts than my generation has ever lived to witness. We have to begin to see each other as neighbors, and further, learn to love our neighbors. Now it is up to us. Up to us to break this terrible cycle, and up to us to spread love.
