This past week has been shocking to a good amount of people. Hate is being spread whether you wanted Donald Trump to become president, or you didn’t want him to. That is why I decided to protest. I didn't protest the fact that Trump is now our president. I protested the hate that is being spread because of it. We didn't burn flags. And we didn't speak words of separation or hate. We marched because as humans we need to defend the equality of all races, religions, and sexual orientations. The people affected by Trump becoming president felt a lot better afterwards. We didn't do anything violent. We just came together to express our feelings. It wasn't about wishing Clinton was president or that Trump wasn’t. It was about coming together despite our differences and knowing there is always someone in the community to support you.

I would be very disappointed if no one was protesting, because the hate being spread over a presidency is not okay. That being said, I don’t agree with the protestors who are burning our flag and destructing property. That is the opposite of what this country needs. If you want the hatred and violence to end, why create more of it? We need to finally accept that Trump will in fact be the 45th president of the United States. By accepting this, we will be able to congregate and figure out what we can do to help our local government, as well as preparing to elect a better candidate for the 2020 presidency. Protesting is just the beginning of what we can do to make our voices heard.

We can accept Trump as our president, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept the bigotry that comes along with his presence. A large amount of Donald Trump’s following during his campaign were racist and discriminatory because of the things he continuously said about minorities and other races. And now that Trump has won, those people who supported him think it is okay to treat minorities with disrespect and hate. I’m not saying that this hasn’t been an issue before, but Trump becoming president has only encouraged it more. The goal of our protest was to send a message of solidarity to the targeted groups that are frightened right now, and let them know that we are with them, no matter what. It is not about if you’re a democrat, republican, black, brown, white, blue, gay, straight, or transexual. It all starts with the people, not the government, and we need to spread the idea of unity, not separation.