Do not ignore what is happening around you.
Do not turn a blind eye to the growing hate and evil making itself known. For too long, we have been lulled into inaction. Believing that by ignoring the problems, they will disappear. Believing that we have no role to play in the injustices that we see, the raw hate that openly walks in the streets. We all have a role to play. Every last one of us.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
When we ignore the pain and suffering of others, something inside of us dies. Our compassion wanes and we become desensitized to the plight of those around us. Hate is a cancer, a terminal disease that will kill us and destroy what we care about most in this life. We may believe ourselves untouched by its effects, but it will be felt in the senseless violence, the outrage and the pain that causes others to respond in kind. By ignoring hate at its source, we allow it will spread and destroy our life and the lives of everyone it touches. The effects may not be immediate, but they are guaranteed, in one generation or the next.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must fight the hate, the darkness, with its most powerful foe. The foe that has stood against it throughout history. The foe that never gives up, that never surrenders. The foe that stands victorious even in seeming defeat. We must destroy hate with love. We must stand with those who are facing injustice, those who are the target of the vicious racism and hate perpetrated by those who stand on the wrong side of history. We must do this anywhere and everywhere it shows itself, in whatever form it takes.
We all may not find ourselves marching through the streets in protest, but we can do our parts by confronting the family members influenced by hate, the friends spewing bile against those of another gender or ethnicity. These are the moments that we cannot remain silent, the moments that we take our side in the war between love and hate and make our stand.
There are only two sides in this war and we cannot remain neutral. Deciding to do so roots us firmly on the side of hate, on the side of injustice, regardless of whether that is our true intention.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama
Join me in making a difference. Rise up and show that hate will not win. Stand with your brothers and sisters as a member of the one and only race on this planet, the human race.
Stand for what is right and just. Take your place in history.