Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
—Maya Angelou
Build bridges not walls.
Freedom and liberty for all.
It’s fine if you agree with me sometimes, and other times not. That’s great, in fact. You should only worry when you find yourself in a group of people that all think completely alike. Our strength is that we have a lot of different ideas and viewpoints, and maybe we don’t agree 100 percent on every detail. We have many different reasons why we are drawn together and united in our stand against this administration, and that is good.
We should embrace that diversity and not build walls among ourselves. Always strive for unity as the highest guiding principle. What I mean by that is, if someone is against Trump, they are on the same side as us. That goes for Democrats and anarchists, that goes for conservatives and liberals, that goes for Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, atheists, everyone.
There is a tendency among humans to group people into different categories. When people feel threatened, when they feel afraid, they are much more likely to give up their own freedom and power and turn to someone who they perceive as being “strong” to take control, to be in charge. This often comes with the herd mentality, the desire to belong to an “in-group.” The cost of being a part of that in-group is creating an outsider, a scapegoat, a group of people to blame. It’s simplistic, and it’s an old story, a feature of human nature, a relic of tribalism.
It is obviously incredibly important that we do not fall prey to this terrible flaw of the human mind. I see people on the left doing it all the time, sadly. Progressives who judge others for not being progressive enough. There is always someone with more radical politics, more liberal views about capitalism, or gender views, or race politics, or whatever, and then progressives get divided up into different camps and ideologies. It is not time to divide, it is time to flow together. The future of this planet may very well hinge on the question of whether we can learn to stop putting people in boxes, stop building walls of separation. The side that can be the most inclusive, inviting, welcoming, and open will decide the future, it’s simple math.