In my life, I have been fortunate to attend six different schools and live in five different states. Only twice have I been a racial majority, and I have never been a religious majority. I’m not saying that I have a more expansive worldview than most or that I know how to better connect with everyone, but this, I believe: You can get so much further with kindness and sincerity than anyone has ever gotten with hate, violence and fear. Hatred requires so much more energy than love, so much more output of force.

Every day people are forcibly removed from their homes around the world based on skin color, religion or other factors to satisfy the wants of people who believe that submission rather than diversity makes for a more productive society. When has a group of people ever benefited from the strategic repression of one of their subcultures that has not later returned to bite them? History has shown time and time again that hatred never has positive consequences. Understandably, there are situations in which people may be hurt by the actions of a few, by the actions of outliers within a much larger group. The response should not be to completely rescind the larger from our hearts and minds.

Hatred eliminates our ability to feel anything other than our own enveloping, quivering anger. It fills our thoughts and chokes out our ability to think rationally, like an abominable weed. It blinds us to the needs of others and muffles our empathetic emotions. Hate is war and disease and genocide.

Love enables us to feel and connect to others. It is the language that everyone speaks, a song everyone understands, a dance everyone knows by heart.