ter·ror·ism

?ter??riz?m/

noun

“the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”

I woke up this morning

And turned on the TV 

And saw people that looked like me

Marching with fire and screaming words so terrible I dare not repeat them.

I woke up this morning

And turned on the TV

And saw what I saw on election night.

It all played out in front of my eyes like some nightmare

Hate

Violence

Fear.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

In school we were taught that racism ended with the march on Washington

That Barack Obama was proof of our progress

But we were lied to

Fed the watered down version of our history.

Slavery was just an honest mistake

Colonization was necessary

And the KKK isn’t a terrorist group because it’s white and Christian.

Our history was stolen from us.

Virginia is only one example of how the hate that we so often pretend doesn’t exist

Thrives.

When your country was founded on hate

Built on the stolen lives of those who “looked different”

When the leader of the supposed “free world” builds walls and bans Muslims

This s*** isn’t surprising.

America was built on it.

What do we do now?

What is there to say that will make things better?

How many condolences can we tweet and heartfelt Facebook posts can we write?

There has to be more than this.

Every single day

We have to get up

Go out

And decide who we want to be.

Choose not to hate

Choose not to put our heads in the sand and pretend days like today don’t exist

Because this is our world

This is America

It always has been.