Turn anger into action

I don’t think there’s anything that can prepare a person for an unexpected visit from hate.

My moment came while I was tailgating for the Georgia vs. Florida football game. A shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Eleven dead.

A sickening feeling ties knots in my stomach and restricts my words with its chokehold. That’s your goal, isn’t it, hate? To silence and diminish me, make me feel helpless, unable to do anything from miles away at school? But if I’ve learned anything in college, it’s that being angry isn’t going to get me anywhere. Pittsburgh — my city, my people, my home — is a great example of this.

Squirrel Hill is the place where support for community events and messages of acceptance are plastered on storefronts and yard signs. Temples across from churches, Kosher bakeries across from pizza shops — all the crisscrossing intertwines to create a web that catches the people who need this community. Pittsburgh feels as a city. We are all immigrants, all refugees, all children — we take the time to alleviate the suffering of others in any way that we can. This is the city I know. And hate? You are not welcome here.

Turn anger into action. Turn away from hate and toward love. Tell neighbors, family and strangers they are so incredibly loved — because they are, and so are you.

This is not a conversation of Republican versus Democrat. This is not a battle for winning people over, to push personal agendas. This is being human. It’s having the courage to repeatedly slam the door on hate, letting love come in the back, seep through the floorboards, shine through the windows.

Hate, you are not welcome here. Not in my city, in my classroom, at my church, on my bus, in my life. But love, thank you. I am ready to take Pittsburgh as an example, ready to spread you into the deepest cracks and holes of the world and people around me. So, bring it on hate; you have an uphill battle to fight if you want any place in my world again.