p/p :: so yeah this was an english assignment but i also liked it a lil (just the message at least the writing is shit and i kinda wanted to share it with someone to even make a tiny indentation on someone's persona so yeah here it is)
Who would have known that a Tuesday, maybe one of the most bland days of the week, would be such a critical turning point in our lives? This recent election has been one of the most controversial political events in American history. From the few American presidents that I do know some facts about, the only president that I can think of that people may have disliked more than the current president is Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States of America, due to his Indian Removal Act and his vetoing of the second National Bank. However, an individual does not need to be officially in office before igniting controversy.
The internet always finds a way to make jokes, or memes, about current events. When the current president was campaigning, the world wide web was filled with a variety of jokes ranging from his orange skin to a bald eagle attacking him during a photoshoot. Who would have known that all of these mocking jokes would one day reference the current president of the United States of America?
There was this one girl that used to swim with me and she is rather vocal about her beliefs. Around dinner time the day of the inauguration, she started texting me in a rant about how the current president is "a sexist, racist" bigot with a "very fake-looking hairstyle." She addressed the fear of deportation because her parents are not legally documented yet and questioned why the people of this country chose to elect this certain candidate. I only recently learned how the electoral college works and I did my best to explain the process to her while she continued to call the states that voted Republican choice names. I shared my observation that our president is a very persuasive speaker and knew how to target certain audiences to give him their vote. I presented an example of how the president generalized an entire religious group as terrorists, and to someone who may have never interacted with someone who looks like he or she came from that part of the globe, he or she may genuinely believe that all people who looked a certain way pose a serious threat to this country.
I labelled these brainwashed people as ignorant. Most people believe that ignorance is knowing a fact and choosing to disregard it, but actually the textbook definition of ignorance is not being fully informed of something (so in a way some people are ignorant about the definition of ignorance) My friend continued ranting about how much she hated the president and how awful he is, but could not cite any specific events or policies that reinforced her disdain for the man besides the fact that he could get her parents deported. I informed her there was minimum of thirteen women accusing the president of past sexual harassment. She was taken aback. She said she had never heard of this scandal regarding the current president. I was confused and concerned. How could one declare that he or she dislikes another person without being fully informed of the opposer's both good and bad traits? You may not agree with or approve of everything that the leader is doing, but at least you still should know what is going on. It was in that moment when I realized that ignorance goes both ways in this conflict. Thousands of people around the country were swayed to look down on other human beings because the American people had not been properly educated on this particular topic. But at the same time, thousands of people were conditioned to believe that the president is a hateful and unlawful human being from media reports (in which they interpreted the information biasedly) or heard from their friends and families.
I am very grateful for having that conversation that day for enlightening me about how our society can be influenced to think a certain way without having good reasons to do so. I believe it is a pressing matter to re-educate the public on how to properly inform oneself on current events and how to view conflicts from opposing sides to receive the full story to prevent bias. Then and only then is one qualified to make judgements and formulate opinion on a certain matter.
(yep the conclusion is shit sorry)
