Growing up, I always was accepting of everyone and anyone around me. My mom even told me a story about how I learned a valuable lesson as a young child about not being prejudice against people. She told me I once made a comment repeating something I had heard about Hispanics. Her response was “How would (our family friend) feel if you said that to him?” My mom told me I had this revelation at a young age that I have definitely carried with me my whole life. Once you put a face to a race, ethnicity, religion, etc. it becomes personal. You now know someone that fits a group, would you make a prejudice comment to them?

This current election has brought a large helping of hateful, prejudice people. It’s somewhat terrifying to see how many people harvest these thoughts and opinions. For me, it’s hard to keep cool when people are making generalizations about a group of people based on inaccurate information being fed to them. That’s where I think a lot of these issues arise. Our society isn’t advocating for those people who are getting shunned for whatever difference they have, i.e. sexuality, gender orientation, religion, race, etc. I find it hard to understand the mentality of someone who can generalize an entire religion because of a false idea of what that religion is.

As a white American, I have never truly experienced prejudice and hate like other minorities have. I can only try to speak up for those silenced. Something that truly hits a cord with me is this spread of Islamophobia. Currently, the Muslim religion is receiving what seems to be a never-ending stream of misunderstanding. Although I’m not of the Muslim faith, I’ve tried to do my part in researching about the religion as well as what ISIS actually is. I don’t think the media in our country does a good enough job doing the research to avoid a lynching. I try to use my privilege to try to help spread the message of love not hate.

I think I find prejudice so wrong because it doesn’t make sense to me. We’re taught as children to treat people the way you would like to be treated. When did that stop? Why has that message gone away? I think educating the youth in this country can only help stop the spread of hate and prejudice. We’re taught to respect others’ opinions and others’ in general but somehow, along the way, that’s stopped. Why aren’t we encouraging everyone to be nice to others? Why are we separating everyone? Why are we allowing the media to fuel the fire of hatred? Speaking up is the only way I see prejudice becoming a thing of the past. We can’t turn a blind eye to hatred.

Prejudice, racism, homophobia, sexism. They’re all terrible. They’re all rooted in hate. It’s not hard to love others. It’s not hard to Google search about different groups struggles and truths. I think we, and by we I mean everyone in the world, need to stop feeding into the hate, start speaking up, and start educating ourselves and others. Love trumps hate.