Love

Here's The Facebook Status We All Need Right Now: Love. Must. Win.

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love

This morning my Facebook feed is flooded with black squares for profile pictures and two-word status updates: I'm scared. I'm ashamed. I'm moving.

Please. Stop.

We've all read this story a million times before, friends. This is the point in the tale when the protagonist fights on, FINDS THE WAY despite utter hopelessness. Perseveres. Defeats evil.

I'm a white stay-at-home mom. I'm right where he wants me to be already. My day-to-day life isn't going to change dramatically. But I'll be damned if I'm going to stand by while he puts my friends and neighbors, whom I love so passionately, where he wants them to be, too.

My privilege comes with a responsibility. That doesn't change with this election.

But I'm also going to fight for my fellow Americans in rural Florida and Arkansas. I'm going to fight for those that have lost all hope of finding jobs, that fear the American Dream is being ripped from their hands.

Those that are so overwrought with feelings of disappointment, isolation, and disenfranchisement. I hear you, too. I refuse to believe that all those votes were truly cast in hatred of the countrymen who do not look like you do. I have to believe you're hurting, too.

I have to believe in love.

This is not the time to quit. This is not the time to go dark. This is not the time to turn out your light. This is the time to shine. Shine brighter. I'm going to shine so bright that every damn dark corner of bigotry, hate, and fear in the country is illuminated.

I'm going to shine hope and strength. I'm going to teach my feminist sons that laws aren't always just and that our privilege comes with the responsibility to fight for those that others may deem “less than.” I'm going to shine love.

Here's the status update we need: Love must win. Shine on.