Only Love Can Conquer Hate
By Todd A. Smith
On election night Donald Trump tweeted, “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!”
And for once, I agree with “The Donald,” but not for the same reasons as he does. After President Barack Obama’s re-election Tuesday night, Americans, both Black and White, showed their true racist colors and it is imperative that the country see the error of its ways if we are ever to get past our history of bigotry.
From frat houses to Facebook, Americans of every color showed on Tuesday night that we are so far from a post-racial America that we are actually going backwards when it comes to race relations, and unfortunately people of every hue are to blame.
After Obama’s re-election, disgusted White Americans took to college campuses spouting racist rhetoric and burning images of the POTUS and elated Black Americans took to social media claiming Wednesday as National Black People’s Day and jamming “My President’s Black” by Young Jeezy.
According to CBSNews.com, protests erupted on the campus of University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) immediately following Obama’s re-election. Based on reports, Ole Miss students shouted racial slurs as rumors of a riot spread on social media amongst the Oxford, Miss. students.
Making matters worse, the presidential protests erupted just after the university honored the 50th anniversary of the integration of Ole Miss by James Meredith, which resulted in deadly riots in 1962.
“Now, 50 years later, about two percent of the overall student body goes out to protest when their guy doesn’t win the presidency and a portion of that small percentage displays the ugly strain that still infects too many in our student body,” wrote Ole Miss journalism professor Ellen Meachem.
However, on Wednesday night, students returned to the Ole Miss campus for a vigil calling for racial unity.
If we are to move forward as a country and unite across racial lines, White Americans have to realize the “good ole days” of the Confederacy are long gone.
Furthermore, Black Americans have to realize that adding fuel to the fire only means that we will burn faster, and sometimes we are just as much to blame as our White counterparts for poor race relations in this great nation.
As a community, we as Black Americans need to realize that the old cliché “two wrongs do not make a right” is spot on and we need to fix the racial problem in America, not worsen it.
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the icons of the Civil Rights Movement were confronted with racism and violence, they did not counter it with more racism and violence, but with love, tolerance and understanding.
Like King would say, you might be able to murder a hater, but you cannot murder hate.
Only love will conquer hate and it is high time that all Americans take a lesson on love and come together as one before it is too late.
Smith is publisher of Regal Magazine, a publication dedicated to the African American community.
