I refuse to hate. As painfully difficult as it is, I will be kind. I will not preach about the faults and hypocrisy of the Christian faith. Despite my disgust, I will be kind. I vow to voice my opinion with maturity and fight the hate that is penetrating this country. Even though I want to scream, I will be kind.
When I awoke on November 9, 2016, my chest collapsed. I wept in the arms of others as we feared for our loved ones. I, my mothers—she, her dearest friend. Suicide hotlines filled my Facebook feed. The beauty I saw in this world turned to a flaming red outlined in funeral black. Never have I been this afraid.
I’m not going to argue my opinion because it’s impossible to convince the ignorant of the horror that is our future. Instead, I’m going to share my fear with you. Maybe then it will become valid. Maybe then you will stop telling me to “get over it.”
Ever since I was a child, I have had a lingering fear of telling people that my mother is a lesbian. The church told me that we would all burn in hell; strangers reminded me that it was wrong; female friends informed me that they weren’t interested in women (as if I inherited some illness from my mother). The fear was real. I didn’t want to be bullied or shunned. I didn’t want to put my mother in a position to be judged. I hid my family. I hid myself.
It was only a couple of years ago that I conquered that fear. I replaced it with pride—pride in my mother for perusing a life of happiness rather than conforming to what society and the church said. I was genuinely happy, and I didn’t doubt that her future would be a bright one.
When I discovered who was to be our next president, every fiber of my being was filled with that same fear, but this time it wasn’t coated with child innocence. I now see how the cruel find it okay to physically persecute minorities. I now see how many people have the capacity to harness hate—how many are capable of looking the other way. My fear is real, and not just for my family, but for every single person who is now at risk of persecution.
Tolerance is not innate: it is instilled. It is an ideology that needs to be checked. Donald Trump has shattered this way of life. He has tapped into the evil that lives in every single one of us, and now I wake up every morning with a cloud of fear looming over my head.
We are not being dramatic. We are not exaggerating. We are not making this up. My fear is real. Our fear is real, whether it be for ourselves, for our loved ones, or for people we have never met.
I cannot change the outcome of this election, but I do have a moral duty to fight the hate that is blanketing our country, and so do you. Speak with strength, not with violence. Do not chastise—sternly correct. Do not alienate the ignorant; educate them. Do not become what we fear. This isn’t over. The minute that it is, we have normalized hate, and that is something I refuse to do.
