All of you are Racists

Sorry, it's true. We're all a little racist. Racism isn't always the violent, vocal trash we see in the news. It can be low-key and within our own minds. It's normal to have our best interests in mind, but think about people who don't even have a voice. It's easy for us to say that life is pretty good when we're not getting attacked by police officers every day, supervised by employees when we're walking around in stores, or stopped from enjoying an afternoon walk. We often don't think about those people who need our thoughts the most.

Today, many people argue that Donald Trump is not a racist. Do I even need to go on? First of all, it's called the Corona Virus, not the Chinese Virus. Second, you can't build a wall between the US and the entirety of Mexico because guess what? Not every Mexican person is a violent criminal who wants to steal our jobs. You just assume they are. These dangerous assumptions inspire racism, but I digress.

Many of us, like Trump, keep our own interests in mind, whether it's intentional or not. We have subconscious negative thoughts about people just because they aren't exactly like us. This applies to race, but also gender, sexuality, religion, class, and the list will go on. If you think like this, I'm not calling you a bad person. I just think you need to have more empathy. Sure, maybe Trump will be good for our economy in 2020. But what, and who will he be bad for? He certainly won't be good for the innocent children who are stolen from their mothers at the border.

How do we have more empathy? Pretend you're someone that you're completely not. A minority. Someone whose future depends on having an adequate president. How would you feel in certain situations? How would you feel that America is treating you? Then think about you. You're enjoying your day in your beautiful home with your children, where money or appearance has never been a problem to you. Would you sacrifice a little bit of your financial earnings to help someone in need?

I experience diversity every day because in my high school and college, students come from different racial backgrounds and financial backgrounds. I also meet people of different sexual orientations. In my elementary and middle school, I went to a strict, private Catholic school where we wore uniforms so we couldn’t really express ourselves. Because of the religion, being homosexual was frowned upon. Since it was a private school, everyone was upper middle class. When I got into high school, I experienced more diversity because it was a public school, so no matter what your financial situation was, you were allowed to go to school for free. People were more accepting of sexual orientations, so people could be themselves without being scared of getting bullied. I made new friends who wore different clothes than me, had different financial situations, and different sexual orientations.

Now, college is similar to high school because even though it is Catholic, it isn’t as strict. It is more accepting and open to people who are different. I have already met so many diverse people, because we all come from different states and even different countries. We talk about our early school lives, and it’s interesting to see how different we were, but now we are all united at the same school. I hope to always have a mindset like this. If you don't have this mindset, it doesn't mean you're one of those obnoxious racists on the news. It means you may have a racial bias or general bias against people. A lot of people have this, and it doesn't make you a bad person. You just need to grow empathy. I have to continue doing that too, I'm not completely unbiased either.

Listen, I've never been into politics or called myself that kind of person. I'm more of a humanitarian, and I just want a President who includes everyone. The president doesn't have to be some tight business man. He just needs to have the morals that an American should: respect, empathy, equality, and being accepting. Sometimes I feel that when I see Trump's racist or insensitive tweets, and I just scroll by, I'm contributing to the racism. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want you to do this anymore. Have some empathy, treat everyone with respect, and make sure your leaders do the same.