Hate has become an everyday word in our vocabulary, we hate strangers who make us angry while driving, and we hate servers at restaurants when our orders are wrong, we hate our peers, we hate authority, and we hate each other. We hate people simply for being different than us and that has caused hate to rise above love in our nation and that is where our problem begins. If we were simply to choose love above all, there would be less violence, less protests, less evil, and more peace. Peace is the ultimate goal for most of us; so why we all are not doing everything we can to achieve that is lost on me.

This country is incredibly broken right now, people everywhere are hurting. Between the police brutality, the mass shootings, and countless other crimes committed out of racism and prejudice, there has been more than enough violence in the past year alone than anyone should have to see in a lifetime. But the root of these problems isn’t racism or prejudice, the root of these problems is hate, hate stemming from the fact that some people are different than others. There is not a single living breathing thing in this entire universe that deserves to be killed; simply because they are different from the person who thinks that they have the power to make the decision to end someone else’s life. That is not a right that any of us have and we not to stop acting like it is up to us to make that decision. Everyone is worthy of life, regardless of the color of their skin, whom they choose to love, what they believe in, or what they have done.

We need to remember that one person is not a representation of an entire race, religion, or group of people. Something that one person chooses to do does not mean that everyone in the group that they represent is going to do the same. Not all Christians are unaccepting of others who differ from their beliefs, not all police officers are violent, not everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist, and not all black people are gang members. There is always so much more to people than what meets the eye and if we stopped from time to time to find out someone else’s story, we would be amazed at what we find out. There are so many amazing people with amazing stories in this country that we haven’t heard because we’re afraid of people simply for being different than us. We need to stop making assumptions about other people based off of their appearance and start loving each other because what is right is not always easy.

This country has been divided over race and religion for far too long. We are all equal, the only thing that makes us different is our upbringings and the levels and types of melanin present in our bodies. We all need the same things to survive, we all love the same, we all hurt the same, we are all the same, and we are all equals. We need to bring the inequality in America to and end and bring the country together as one to stand united, as brothers and sisters. America is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave and we must begin to rebuild this country, making this a safe place that people feel proud to call home.