It has now been over a week since this historical vote on whether or not Britain would being leaving or staying with the European Union. For someone that doesn't really follow politics or foreign affairs, Twitter was where I first learned of this vote. J.K. Rowling was arguing with twitter followers over how she uses her power to, "influence for the labour elite" as Nichola Davies phased it.
This then lead me to search just exactly what was going on in Britain and why someone was going against our Queen. What I found was not articles explaining the two sides to this argument, or even a "quick fact page." Rather the top stories were about Donald Trump tweet getting attacked by Scotland's citizens as they told him just how ignorant he was, people regretting what the vote had done, and the most predominate: the large amount of intolerance for immigrants and those who look like immigrants.
As I scrolled through the large amount of hate I became more and more confused. How could this country become so hate-filled in a matter of days? I'm not saying that I thought hate crimes were something that were American made, but it was not something that I saw openly on social media or being spoken about by social figures.
These images are not something that would come to the mind of someone who is thinking about Britain. The more tweets and posts I saw, the more I saw this being a new take on what the American public has been going through for the past year or so. Every since Donald Trump made his comment on building a wall to divide us from Mexico these types of tweets and posts have become more normalized rather than appalling.
Below are just some of the post from Facebook about #Brexit.
The more posts I saw, the more I saw our own country come November when we either elect someone who is being investigated by the FBI or someone who has incited hate back into our country at what I consider to be an alarming rate. Replace "Polish" with "Mexican" and these could be posts and tweets coming from America in a few short months. Mailboxes could be covered with messages demanding that people "go back over the boarder" or people that have been born here but aren't "American" enough will be targeted in the streets because "we made America great again" and that means it is time for "them" to go back home.
Voting on leaving or staying in the European Union should not be equal to openly being racists or not to people. It should be for the betterment for the society, and tearing down people and threatening them does the exact opposite of that. Keeping this in mind, voting for the next President of the United States should not mean that we leave behind one of our founding values which is that "all men are created equal".
While we celebrate this week of independence, take a moment to really think about what the constitution really set up. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” We are better than the hate that is being presented in front of us. Please remember this as you watch the results this November.
