On June 11, 2016 I attended Boston Pride with my girlfriend for the first time and had such a positive experience. On June 12, 2016, I woke up to notifications on my phone about the mass shooting that killed 50 people in a LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida. At first I looked at the notifications, took it all in and then went about my day as normal, it was only later when my girlfriend and I were discussing it that I truly felt affected by it, as I am apart of the targeted group. What scared me the most was that when I first read my phone, I thought that it was just another mass shooting. Just another mass shooting? When did mass shootings become so commonplace? For most of my lifetime, which is a post Columbine and 9/11 world, hundreds and thousands of innocent people have died from mass killings. I have lived through 9/11, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, the Boston Bombing, Fort Hood and so many more. It has become so typical for me to open my phone and see the news reporting the number of victims dead from a mass attack, that now I just shrug my shoulders and move on with my day. This is an incredibly scary fact. Hate, fear and violence have become so common in our culture that most of us are numb to it. Hate has become so normalized that it is typical for a five year old to not be able to read but be fully versed in mass shooting protocol. I do understand that it is important for school aged kids to practice drills; I just think it’s a sad fact. That’s not the problem though; the problem is that we have become complacent. We accept what our world has become and learn to adapt to the changes. But why are we so apathetic to this issue? Why is it ok to fear going to the movies, or the airport or even about going to school, because you never know what might happen. Why is that ok? I know I am no longer happy being complacent. I refuse to open my phone and shrug at the newest victim count from the most recent hate crime anymore.

We live in a culture of fear. Politicians and citizens no longer make rational decisions but make big decisions based on fear. We fear for our national safety because of terrorists and we fear for our safety in our own country because of shooters or bombers. Basically we are afraid of everyone, our own citizens and other nations citizens. We call this the war on terrorism; but really we are at war with each other. Being an American no longer unifies us but divides into republican and democrat and being a human no longer unites us but divides us into us vs. them. Fear has turned to hatred, which has turned to violence. This mentality now guides us in every decision we make, from where we send our kids to school to who we want to elect for president. This presidential election has been the best example of this. Now I’m going to try and be as least bias as I can be here, as this article is not pro-one candidate over another, but an example of our culture of fear. Fear has been the one force driving every decision and candidate in the 2016 election. Trump has based his campaign off the fear of terrorism and therefore proposed his immigration reform and the building of “the wall”. This drew in hundreds and thousands of Americans to support Trump, because they are afraid. They are afraid of terrorists invading America, they are afraid that immigrants will take their jobs, and they are even afraid to trust Hilary Clinton. Meanwhile Hilary’s campaign has tried to encourage people to be afraid of Trump and his temperament. Both liberals and democrats are scared. We are so afraid of the world we live in, that we can no longer talk to each other rationally and come to solutions. Our country has never been more divided.

What people fail to see is that fear is fed by hatred and ignorance. Conscious or not, we all have biases that force us to be blind to many issues. For some reason, we have never seen each other as all being humans but as all being different. When we study each other, we study what’s different, never what’s the same. When a child sees something or someone they may not understand, a parent might answer with, “they are just different.” Are they really that different though? Why is the LGBTQ community so different from the heterosexual community? People see gender and sexuality as a divider instead of seeing love as a connecter. Why is there so much Islamophobia in the world today? People see Islam vs. Judeo-Christian as a barrier rather than belief and g-d as a bridge. Why does racism persist in our world today? Because people see skin color instead of seeing beauty. We have become reliant on prejudices and biases and many don’t see it as a problem. But these facts are truly the basis for all of your problems. If you look at the roots of our war in the Middle East, the first is fear but the second is racism and religious bias. We have stereotyped who we see as the “enemy” and have gone after “them” full force.

So how do we fix this problem? It starts with looking at ourselves and recognizing our own biases. We need to ask ourselves questions when we make decisions, are we acting on unconscious or conscious biases or are we making rational decisions that question our biases? The first step to erasing these biases is recognizing them. But one of the most important steps in fixing this problem is education. Prejudices and biases are learned behaviors; no child is born with them. So if they are learned then they can be unlearned. We need to encourage our kids to question these biases from the start. Education is the key to erasing hate and prejudice in our world. The next generation is the key to creating a world full of love. After all love is a lot more powerful than hate.

Many people have lost hope that our world will ever change. But I haven’t. We have to keep on living with the hope that things can get better because if we don’t, then what do we have? One little patch of darkness will not make a light room turn dark. We can all be beacons of light that continue to shine brightly. This is my hope. I will continue to fight everyday for this dream, because I for one no longer want to live in a world where fear and hatred run ramped. We can make a change but we all need to be apart of that movement. Together we are stronger than the few that are tainting the world. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Harry Potter quotes: “ [He] isn't in his right mind. It's been twisted and warped by fear. Now fear makes people do terrible things” (Sirius Black). Fear makes us do horrible things, but if we fight the fear, we can make better choices.