Stand Together

If I am intolerant of intolerance, does that make me intolerant? -Unknown

Spoiler Alert…The answer is yes!

I said I wasn’t going to do it.  There would be no election results post from me.  There is really nothing I can say about this week’s elections that hasn’t already been said much more eloquently than I will ever be able to put into words.

But here it is anyway, my two cents.  But perhaps with a bit of a different perspective than how most are approaching the topic.

Before I go further I want to say I voted for Hilary.  Not just because she was the “lesser of two evils”.  I like her, I thought should would’ve made a good president.  I agree with her stand on a lot of the policies and of the two I felt that she was the most qualified for the job.

I’m just as gobsmacked, disappointed, angry and afraid as the rest of you.

But here is the thing.  I’ve become the very thing that I despised in this election.  I find myself assigning labels, holding bias, choosing interactions and viewing people differently based on their political views.  The very reasons I didn’t want Trump to win are the very truths I’m holding onto to explain how this happened in our country.  Racist, ignorant, narrow-minded, white elitists….I find these words running through my mind.  I’ve become intolerant.

The problem is, even if these things are true, holding onto these labels is no way to overcome what is happening in this country right now.  When Hilary said we need to “stand together”, this didn’t just mean when it was easy.  We cannot just stand with people that are like minded, agree with us and hold similar values.  If we are going to bridge this divide we have to be bigger.  We are going to have to accept people for who they are.  We must, because you cannot change something or someone if you don’t accept where they currently are.

It is the only way forward.  It is the only through.  Fear may have won this battle but LOVE will ultimately win this war.