November 8, 2016: It was Election Day and all of America was anticipating the results. Watch parties were everywhere and Twitter was smashing records. Hour by hour, one by one, we would find out who won the electoral votes in each state. It was the countdown to 270. Those few hours were most definitely some of the most angst-filled hours of my life. Trump was in the lead. Trump won Florida and Pennsylvania. Trump won it all. Something that not many people would have thought possible a year back, and it happened.
November 9, 2016: It felt like I was living in a fictional reality, only to wake up and find out it was our new reality. My campus had a different vibe that day. Instead of the friendly faces you would typically see, all you saw was separation, divide, and sadness. Thousands of students were not in attendance that day due to a newly-evoked fear. Personally, I was not fearful because he claimed victory, I was fearful for further divide it would cause between the people in this country. People were telling me that they had never been more aware of their identities until that moment in time. They told me that they have never felt more unsafe in their own homes and their own country. A lot of America was fearful for the safety of either themselves or their loved ones. Even more so to add to the division of the country, fliers were posted up all around campus threatening the diverse culture and background of our university. While some didn’t mind the state of our new country, several did.
November 10, 2016: Waking up at the peak of sunrise, in order to protest the hate and the outcome of the election, students gathered around the Stallions to voice their opinions. It gathered mass attention and students of every race, religion, gender and sexual orientation came together to protest that all this hate isn't needed. As civil human beings, we need to come together as people to educate and listen to each other before snap judging them as a racist or homophobic just because they voted for him. We need to treat each and every person with respect. We need to love each other, because in the end, love will get us a lot farther than hate. Love will always trump hate.
There is a video that was shown to me at a leadership conference I attended this past summer that spoke volumes to me. In the video, activist Maya Angelou discusses how the power of love can move mountains, how it can set you free. The quote that stood out the most to me was, “Love liberates. It doesn’t just hold, that’s ego. Love liberates.” Love is so powerful. Our new president-elect may be trying to Make America Great Again, but the hate cannot stop until America teaches each other how to love again.
I will end with two quotes we all need to live by in the coming days, months and rest of our lives. The first comes from Hamilton mastermind, Lin-Manuel Miranda. He states that, “love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, {and it} cannot be killed or swept aside.” The second comes from someone who fought so hard for not only the rights of African-Americans, but broke ground for the rights of all people. Of course, it is the one and only Martin Luther King Jr. who stated that “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
If we come together as a united country. so much can become accomplished. So much influence will be made and so much change will happen. As citizens of this country, we need to fight for what we believe, and although we cannot agree on everything, we should all agree that we will be there for each other in our times of need, and we will love each other because we are all in this together. We are all united in the country of red, white, and blue, for we live in the United States of America.
