In the past couple of months, every day that I drove by one particular street post in my neighborhood, I automatically got mad. That’s because someone had strategically put a “TRUMP: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” campaign sticker directly at eye level for passersby. There was never really a good time to take it down. Whenever I would pass it, I would tell my mom that I needed to take it down, as it irritated me to see something like that representing our neighborhood. Although, every time, it would be, “Maybe next time we see it” because we had already driven past. But in the last week of July, I was through. My mom pulled over to the corner of the post on a late afternoon, and let me get out of the car to tear down the sticker, smashing it into a ball and throwing it down.
That was supposed to be the ending — but it wasn’t.
In the next couple of days, we passed the post. The sticker was back. So I repeated what I did before. Got out, ripped the sticker, threw it away, drove off. Hopefully this would be the end, but of course, it was not.
On Monday, Aug. 7, my mom and I were going home to make sandwiches when we passed the post. Thinking there wasn’t going to be anything there, my mom didn’t ask about it. However, as we pulled up to the stop, it was back. And in this instance, there was more than just a sticker. The owner of the sticker, who was clearly angry that someone was taking their stickers down, decided it would be beneficial to not only cover the surface of it with tape (like a makeshift lamination) but also cover the edges with masking tape full of racial slurs and comments against Hispanics. That simple sign of ignorance hit me hard. The plain fact that the poster thought that because someone was tearing their sticker down, they were allowed to post hate speech wherever they wanted. That is not the case. In no way was I going to let something so abusive stay up on a post to let bigotry show its way throuh my neighborhood. So instead of ripping everything down, my mom and I ripped the sticker the best we could. The tape was so strong it wouldn’t come off, so we shredded it with our keys. I believe that just shredding it would put our stance out there for the person who put it up; we were not going to let ignorance take over, and we would keep fighting back until it stopped.
https://twitter.com/lilylovesnorway/status/896212480275480577
Unfortunately, since the start of Trump’s campaign, and throughout it until Election Day, Trump gained many supporters whose votes were cast because his values were like theirs. The data of the 2016 American National Election Study shows that Trump’s racial attitude was more intriguing than his ability to run a government. That said, many people who agreed with those racial values saw that they were able to be racist and that it wouldn’t have high consequences with the higher ups because their own president was allowed to spew hatred as well.
Though it is and forever will be a challenge to stop hatred among races, you can always do something to help. Groups like the ANSWER coalition have been recruiting members to stop racism in communities all over the world since 2001. Racism should no longer be tied to freedom of speech; your political beliefs shouldn’t allow you to spread hatred among your fellow people. When something like a hate speech sticker shows up, there will be more. Hate speech is not free speech, and ignoring the issues will not stop them.
