I rarely talk about controversial topics. I have even been described as sharing similar traits with an ostrich. This isn't true of the past month. I've been doing what I do best, sitting and watching as the town and state I call home is mocked, reviled, and praised by people who do not live here. I have had the privilege to call Charleston, South Carolina home for the past three years as I go to College of Charleston. I have almost always felt safe and welcome in this state as a New Yorker and outsider. When Dylann Roof walked into Emanuel AME Church on June 17, 2015 this become suddenly very untrue. Roof enraged millions, sparking a new conversation about racism in the modern age.

This past Saturday two controversial groups converged on Columbia, South Carolina protesting the removal of the confederate flag from state house grounds. The KKK and off shoots of the Black Panther Party clashed, one protesting the removal of the confederate flag and one protesting the presence of the white supremacy group. These groups meeting at the state house is a direct reaction of Dylann Roof's actions, once again opening the wound so many of us are trying to cover up and polish in Charleston to make the city appealing to tourists.

This rally has once again showed one of the deepest underlying truths about the American south, racism is alive, well, and covered up. As I live in New York I have seen my fair share of racism, but none as deep-seated as it is in the south. I have watched as people I thought I knew let small comments escape denigrating an entire ethnicity of people, when really they didn't like the actions of a single person. These people, my friends, had no idea that what they were saying would be offensive to this outsider. But the problem is not what they said, but the fact they didn't know that it was wrong.

I'm not saying that every southerner is a racist. I do believe, however, that a certain amount of intolerance has been taught by older generations to the new; hate breeding hate. This deep-seated intolerance goes beyond ethnicity, extending to sexuality and gender as well. This weekend we saw the very worst of the hate from a group of people who believe they are better than another because of the color of their skin. Anyone who has taken an evolutionary anthropology class could tell you that everyone started off with dark skin, a product of the hot, sunny African plains where being human began. A change in pigment does not mean you have a greater capacity for knowledge or a greater capacity to love, it only details the amount amount of vitamin D your ancestors needed to be able to absorb.

I have felt for the past month like a fish out of water, as I flop around and try to make sense these acts of hate that seem impossible in this day and age. The amount of intolerance makes me want to flee the south, and leave an area that currently seems to be exploding with animosity. But then, I walk outside and see the very best thing about Charleston; the kind, polite, welcoming people who live here. So my message is two-fold, practice, tolerance, and kindness and hold your tongue. If you are just going to spew hate, we don't want to hear it. Make like a southerner and break out some award-winning hospitality and goodness converting hatred into a force for good.