Tuesday morning was pink.

I had woken up extra early to pack all my school books into my backpack, apply my mascara, and eagerly go through my head what points I would highlight in this article. I expected to write about what it felt like, as an 18 year old girl, to vote for the first female president in the history of the United States.

I expected to reference the 19th amendment, and to pair it with a moving but playful anecdote about an instance of empowerment during my time in an all-girl’s high school. I was going to talk about what this election meant for my mom, for myself, my sisters, my sorority, and my daughter. I’d describe the glass ceiling breaking in one of the most spectacular ways possible- a fairytale story like the ones I was accustomed to hearing when I was a little girl, in which the Big Bad Cheeto lost and the beautiful and strong heroine triumphed against all odds. I would have outlined the power of hard work, the power of love for a nation and its people and oneself. My main theme was going to be beauty: how the United States had redefined it, by seemingly making it synonymous to diversity, intelligence, and passion.

Wednesday morning was black.

I woke up to a feeling of dread. Something was grotesquely off. I didn’t want to stand up, get up, face a world that had changed, or had maybe become more clear, or maybe more muddled, overnight.

The fact of the matter is that not every person that voted for Trump was a bigot or a sexist necessarily, but also that every bigot and sexist voted for Trump. Wednesday morning then, the hatred won.

I woke up feeling hated.

I’ve been called ugly and a try-hard and bossy and a great many more things before. I’ve been lied to, cheated off, groped, ignored before. Even still, I could handle disrespect because I knew my worth. I know how math works. 1+2=3. You have a vision, you work hard for it, you get a result. My parents taught me my worth, my education taught me my math, my experiences gave me my results.

Wednesday morning broke my heart. In my own room, I, like hundreds of thousands of people across America, was told I was worthless. Being a female, a particularly stinging revelation took a physical form: a woman at her best was still not able to defeat a man at his worst.

Wednesday afternoon was grey.

I was at a loss for words, so I listened. Despite strange feelings of hopelessness and fatigue (which I later learned were normal responses to a traumatic event), I went to my morning classes. Many of my professors and my classmates wore black to demonstrate solidarity with those Trump had targeted during his campaign. I passed a professor sitting on the floor, legs pulled up to her chest, openly crying in a hallway on my way to the bathroom.

That day, I participated in a silent sit-in, a method of peaceful protest, with hundreds of other students to show support and compassion for undocumented individuals on campus. We were all confused about the current state of affairs of our country, but we were also confident in our identities, and the identities of those in our communities. Protests at universities all across the country have reaffirmed the worth of their students.

I went to a discussion on sexual consent specifically for sorority women, hosted by the Greek community in Berkeley. The dialogue was based on what to do if and when we faced sexual harassment/assault. Two men were there because they felt that there is a lack of education from the perspective of the male, who is, statistically, most commonly the aggressor. This disproportion of transparency and education is both a byproduct and a building block of the Trump legacy.

Wednesday night was brown.

I went to a group gathering specifically for people of color and blacks, where words of genuine fear, desperation, and anger were shared. One girl with a quivering voice relayed that her family had been living in the United States without legal papers for 30 years. They had paid taxes, paid for her education, and had been contributing members of society. She said that as the only college educated member in her family, she got a call from her parents fearfully asking her what their future would be like. It must be heartbreaking to embody your family’s American Dream and have no answers for them and no way to protect them.

Another person spoke on educating privileged and ignorant Americans. She spoke of having to struggle as an underrepresented minority, facing daily micro- and macro-aggressions. It should not be her responsibility, she argued, as a victim with considerably less power as mandated by the privileged, to also educate them on basic human kindness.

Students, only 18, 19, 20 years old, constantly facing adversity and disenfranchisement, felt jaded.

Someone mentioned that now, more than ever, we must arm ourselves: arm our hearts, arm our minds.

The subsequent days have been deep purples.

I’ve learned now, more than ever, the power of privilege. Contrasted with the marginalized groups I heard from on Wednesday, an overwhelming majority of my white classmates responded to the election results with an eye towards the future. They have the ability to “wait and see” if Trump really does enact every policy he had menaced. They also have the luxury of having a loud voice and access to many more resources.

Privilege can lead to drastic change or to drastic complacency.

Today is white.

I don’t have any answers yet, but I have learned this week that I must, we must, keep faith in our worth and in the worth of each other. We must work, as the people of the United States of America, to trump hate through kindness, empathy, and love.

“In a world where categories tend to tyrannize our minds

And hang our wills up on narrow pegs.

It is well at every given moment to seek the limits in our lives.

And once those limits are understood

To understand that limitations no longer exist.

Earth could be fair. And you and I must be free

Not to save the world in a glorious crusade

Not to kill ourselves with a nameless gnawing pain

But to practice with all the skill of our being

The art of making possible” (Schneibner, "The Art of Making Possible 13-22).