“Mommy, Isaac said I’m white. But I told him it’s not about skin color. It’s about what’s inside. Mr. Steve
said that’s right”. This is what my son came home from school telling me, amongst other things. How is it
that we teach our kids to be open-minded, be respectful, to care for others, to treat others the way they want to be treated, to have manners and to stand up to bullies, then one morning we wake up and the very person who is everything we have been taught and have taught our children not to be like, is elected to be the next President of the United States of America. This isn’t the America I want to raise my family in. The hatred against those of us who don’t look like the other, or have the same sexual preference as the other, or study the same religious beliefs. So now what? What do we tell our kid(s)?
How do we explain to them that the POTUS is not someone to aspire to be like, when the last one was
someone of far more dignity, moral standards, and had like-minded values as we? I grew up in an America where race wasn’t an issue. I didn’t know what a hijab was, but I never questioned it. I didn’t know why my sisters skin color was much more fair than mine, but that didn’t concern me. I knew that my parents were of two separate races, but I thought it was beautiful. As a child, I grew up in a two-parent home with a black dad and a Mexican and Native American mom. They both had daughters from their previous relationships; One being full black and the other, white and Mexican. My brother and I share the same parents, so we look identical. My oldest sister gave birth to a baby girl. Turns out, she has Autism. My 2nd oldest sister is deaf, so I grew up reading the closed caption on the TV screen and learning sign language. My grandma and mom spoke Spanish around us when they didn’t want us in their business. My dad’s side had no filter. I say all this to say that I grew up in a very diverse home and I couldn’t be more proud. I was unintentionally learning to see people without seeing
color, without prejudice, without boundaries, and with open arms. I didn’t need to go to church to learn
these things. I learned these values from my parents who lived two completely different lives and grew up in two different eras, but had the same morals and values.This is the kind of world we should want our family to grow up in.
This is why I don’t care about the emails they tried to attack Hillary with. This is why I am kneeling right
along Colin Kaepernick when the National Anthem is being sung. The lyrics say “For the land of the free
and the home of the brave”. Are those words true to how the people in America treat each other? Which
America are YOU living in?