Dear 2016,

Let's be real with ourselves. You are a hot mess. With your fair share of natural disasters (political and literal), I'm ready to put you in the past. 2016 was the year that racism showed its ugly head. Yes, racism has always been prevalent but it has never shown reared its ugly head like it has this year. This year racism showed everyone that it was still alive and well and no longer hiding. There were numerous showings of hate crimes against several groups of people that were just hard to ignore. Some of these crimes were too reminiscent of America's past and it showed me that we were going backwards.

2016 was the year of the big reveal. You know those old makeover shows where the person would dress terribly or have bad hair, but by the end of the show, they looked glamorous? Well that's what 2016 was to me except 2016 was a bad make over. At the beginning of 2016, there were a lot of people that wished that this year would be the year of change and different outcomes. However it was not. Actually, it's shown that America may have went backwards in progress with the amount of hatred that the country has.

However, 2016 did have positive moments. There were moments were we all came together to work for one cause like NODAPL.

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NODAPL showed that we can all come together as citizens of America to help protect land that is sacred to one culture. Although 2016 may be seen as a terrible year, there were some glimmers of hope that shined throughout the broken vase.

Here's to hoping 2017 will unite us more than 2016 divided us.

Sincerely,

A dissatisfied 2016 customer.