The past week has been pretty hectic due to the election. One thing I personally did not anticipate however was the aftermath. I knew it wouldn't be pretty no matter which candidate won, the hatred spread over social media had already made the negativity surrounding this entire campaign pretty self-evident.
What I did not anticipate however was the amount of violence from Clinton supporters and Trump supporters alike. Since Trump won the election I have heard of people being told to "get out of my country, it's Trump's America now," to hearing that my friend had to pull a kid off the street after he was jumped behind a dumpster for being a Trump supporter.
Never in my life did I think that I would see an election have such an uncontrollable outcome. I also hoped that I would never see the day where people I personally know would be physically harmed because of their their sexual orientation, race, gender, or who they voted for in an election.
Above all, we are all people and deserve to be treated as such. Yes, protest for your cause and for what you think is right but do not belittle others in order to get your point across. As people we should be empowering others instead of tearing them down. Violence and belittlement will get you nowhere. The amount of hate that has been spread is sickening, we have forgotten how to be kind.
The fact of the matter is, this is not "Trump's America," it is our America. We have to make the best out of the circumstances we have been given. I personally hope that over the course of his presidency he tries to unite people and lessen the borders that have made themselves more and more evident throughout this past year. Until then however we must take action and stop the hate ourselves. We have the power to end the bigotry and violence that has plagued our country, we just have to be willing to fight for it.
