This week was a huge step in life for me. Having just graduated back on June 5 with many other students, I can finally say that I am a certified adult. I think my mom took the bigger step by allowing me to go on a vacation without supervision to Arizona. While packing, my mom kept asking me, “What are you going to do if someone makes you uncomfortable?” or “What are you going to do if something happens?” I figured she was just worried because I would be three states (or so) over and not close enough for her to just drive and come get me. But that wasn’t the case. She was worried that since I was not a White American, and since we have heard so many bad things on the news about issues with race, that I was going to be attacked and or degraded, in some fashion. She was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to protect myself (because there really is no way to protect yourself from blatant racism). Of course, I was sure that it wasn’t going to be that bad and I assured her that it would be fine but, she had stirred the pot.

I became fairly wary on the way to Arizona, hoping to find myself away from all of the places where the cameras may be. No later than the 24 hours that I landed here, one of the world's most hated wannabe leaders, Donald Trump, also landed here. He continued his preachings on hate, inequality and dark ages: when America was “great.” On the news, we witnessed as people got ready for his arrival, protesters, for the most part, were ready to rally against his hate but they went about it the wrong way. They were going to add more hate. They were going to throw trash at him, try to knock him down a few sizes, try to forcefully end his campaign. But that has never worked.

Fighting more hate, with even more extreme hate and you get police officers who say that they will take extreme measures against the protesters if they are caught disturbing a man who profits off of hurting other people, off of schemes and lies. I often sit in horror as I watch the news because, how is it that we don’t see that with every new incident, with each new mass tragedy, and with each egregious error that we all personally make by choosing to hate and not love; this could all be avoided. I personally would like to believe that if everyone made the choice, like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and so many other men and women, to love and to peacefully protest, we could change something. Of course, it’s hard to not hate people who are a threat to you and your way of life as you know it but, it is a much healthier way to deal with these tragedies and with these incidents. I believe that we all forget to sympathize, to be sad, but from that sadness, to send good vibes and to pray (if that is something you do) or keep people in your thoughts after disaster hits. We think that the only way to be heard and the only way to win over other people is to destroy them and to dehumanize anyone that looks like them because we don’t know what else to do. Well, I am telling you -- no -- I am asking you to take a moment and think back on the history of America.

Not the civil war and the bloody fights that we went through, but all of the peaceful times. The protests that lead to the civil rights act, to the possibility of better jobs and education for women, to the protests that have changed the world as we know it. What happened to that? I know that we, as a people, are tired and we are hungry for a change but I think that we are not sure how we should go about it. It is time for everyone to start working as a unit rather than against each other. Extremists on both ends need to realize that by hurting each other, they really only hurt the people who are in the crossfire. People who teach their kids the song of hate, whether it be due to race or due to religion or sex or identity or sexuality, whatever it may be, you must stop and think of the negative mark you are leaving on your children.

Together, I believe that we can make a change. I don’t want my mom to be scared for my well-being just because I am in another state. I don’t want my sister to be made fun of because she is mixed race. I do not want my kids growing up thinking that they can’t go to “the South” just because the history there says that blacks aren’t going to be treated well. I ask you all to think about it. Think about the power of both love and hate and think about which one you would like to root for.