I come from a conservative family, and I went to a small Catholic high school, and it wasn't until college that I started to think about my own political beliefs. Life at Fordham was so much different than the environment I knew at home. Jokes that I heard my dad say every day were suddenly very problematic, and I needed to rethink the way I was living my life and what I considered acceptable.
At first, I started forming an opinion because I felt like I had to conform to the society around me. I never cared about politics, and I didn't want to start now. But, after a while, I started to defend an opinion that I truly cared about. To my family's despair, my views developed to be in stark contrast to theirs.
Whenever I go home, they tell me that this "liberal garbage" is just a phase I'm going through in college. They say that I'm being negatively influenced by my friends and that these developing beliefs are going to get me into trouble in the future — that I need to be more careful about how I present myself and my political views on social media.
Sometimes, I wonder if they're right. I wonder if I'm really hurting my reputation with this transition. Should I be worried about my future because of my newfound beliefs?
It's hard to agree with my parents, though, because I'm surrounded by people who perpetuate liberal ideals at college — and just because I've come to agree with them doesn't mean that I've been deceived or taken to this "dark side" that my family is worried about. I've just finally formed an opinion that I'm confident in supporting.
But I still can't deny the fact that I spent 18 years in a Republican household. Racism and homophobia didn't always affect or offend me as much as everyone else — I was used to hearing it all the time.
College has made me very mindful of sensitivity, and I'm working every day to become more educated about marginalized groups. However, I still make mistakes — we all do. I don't always realize what is and is not problematic, these are wounds that I'm still patching from my upbringing. I learn by making mistakes, but these mistakes have been used as weapons against me.
When I mess up, I've had people snap at me, and that's not productive. I'm trying to become a more empathetic person, and, at the same time, I'm trying to expose my family to a new point of view. Hearing from two different extremes all the time is stressful, but I continue to try my best. I form opinions every day, and, although it's difficult, I'm lucky to have so many different perspectives in my life.
This transition isn't an easy process, and change doesn't happen overnight. Mistakes should be viewed as a platform for learning, not as an opportunity for further attacks. We can only progress toward a more accepting world if we work together and understand each other's efforts and points of view.
