I deleted my Facebook account after explaining that I had grown weary on logging on and seeing so much hatred and intolerance thrown around. Coincidentally, this happened right after the presidential election and some people, who obviously were not paying attention, made the assumption that I couldn't accept a Donald Trump presidency.
This assumption cemented my impression of how ignorant people can be and how few people really know me at all.
My choice to delete my Facebook account was something I toyed with for a little over a year. It all first started when the issue of transgender bathrooms was the biggest talk of social media. The ignorance about transgenders and the complete and total intolerance scared me. Not many people were open-minded enough to even try to educate themselves about the topic.
Conclusions such as allowing people to use the bathroom of their gender identity meant giving a green light to pedophiles to prey upon our children were spread and the name calling began. People used their religion as their reason for denying people their right to simply relieve themselves just like anybody else.
I certainly do not want to bash anyone's choice of religion nor do I want to group together any people of a certain religion but often it is one particular group that seems to find justification in a book that has been edited through the ages to control the masses. How they can twist around the true meaning to make it relevant to what they want to banish is amusing to me.
After the election, suicide hotlines were bombarded with people who suddenly feared how their lives would change with a less-than-compassionate government about to take control. In the past 8 years we saw huge advances in equality for all and now these freedoms are being threatened.
Over the past year and a half I saw the true colors of people that I know from my everyday life and although I can respect the idea that we have differences in opinion, it was their pure hatred and lack of open-mindedness towards anyone who was "different" from them that made me ill. It does make me afraid for what is next.
I can agree that political correctness did go too far over to the left but there is a huge divide in this country, one that is just going to get bigger and uglier with hate ruling the day.
I'd like to be hopeful and give this new president-elect a chance but who is he really? How can anyone forget his hateful comments and judgments towards immigrants, women, and others? How can anyone trust a man whose comments and ideas (if followed through with) would set this country back not move it forward?
It isn't just the power of this new president but the fact that with a Republican majority the progress made for human rights can possibly be overturned. Can back-alley abortions really be a thing of the future? Will the LGBT community be persecuted by religious zealots who believe it is justified for them to spew hate upon those they deem as living lives of sin?
Why can't we all just get along? We need to come together and find a way for all of us to live as one. We need to show respect for others, compassion and be open to learning about what we don't understand.
Most of all we have to remember that underneath it all we are the same. We are all souls having a human experience. We need to show kindness towards each other just as we would want others to show kindness towards us.
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