It’s election season in the United States. In a month voters will flock to the polls in order to vote for the candidates they think will best serve as our representatives, including the person they think will best serve as our country’s president. With that, political discussion are popping up all over. That’s a good thing. We need to discuss, we need to learn, and we need to work together to do what we believe is best for our country and our children. Unfortunately, most of the political fodder doesn’t come in this form.
Sharp attacks on various political parties or special interest groups comprise the majority of the posts out there, placed on message boards, on Facebook, and through e-mails. I may be new on Facebook, but I am not new to the e-mails. The e-mails are almost all about hate. Hatred against a political party or against the people the person deems as causing the fall of our society in the way the person thinks it should be. I try to just ignore most of these. On occasion, I have had to block a person’s e-mail address, when the person was specifically sending hate e-mails that they knew were against our beliefs. The upcoming election, along with some increased connection with extended relatives new to e-mail, had us reeling at the hate, debating whether to say something to the newest offender, ignore her, or block her from our e-mail accounts.
The manner of sending such hate e-mails escalated, in my opinion, with a message about the impending loss of White America. I was shocked. I was outraged. Deep down I felt a tiny sense of relief that it wasn’t someone from my side of the family. It reminded me just exactly what is wrong with this country.
As a country, Americans are letting fear of the unknown overcome them and fill them with hate – hate for anyone who isn’t exactly like them. Forget the great American melting pot. They want a homogenous country filled automatons guaranteed to think and act like them, because frankly, that would be the only way to find a group of individuals who agree with you on every single topic. The problem with America is that we have forgotten what our country was founded on. America was supposed to be a new start, a new opportunity for those immigrants travelling to the New World. Our country, the United States of America, was supposed to give opportunity for all.
Instead of being united, the debate about who should lead us is bringing to light the persecution and segregation that has been hiding, in one form or another. How can we ever expect to be united if the hatred of others due to race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, and so on and so forth continues to breed and purposefully be bred among the generations?
It doesn’t matter what your political leanings are, if we want to say hello to America, the United States of America, we have to become united and stop the discrimination and hate. We have to start working together. For me, saying good bye to a white America is a good thing. It’s a very good thing. I may not agree with you on a wide variety of issues, but you are my fellow citizen and I should be fighting, not against you, but with you for the freedom and rights of all people. Americans will never be a free people until everyone is free to enjoy the same freedoms and rights.
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This election season has been fraught with meaningful conversations with our children. Last week, a conversation between my children about political parties ensued. I wasn’t party to this particular discussion, but I was privy to listening to it. Discussion about what they thought of the different political parties turned into a conversation about which political party they might want to join when they were grown. My eight year old replied, “When I grow up, I want to be an American.”