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Students first line of defense against hate

Over the past several months the Republican front-runner Donald Trump has made many incendiary comments. He suggested that a Black Lives Matter protester "maybe deserved to be roughed up." He implied that Mexicans coming to the United States are "rapists."

And he has intimated, should he be elected president, that a registry for Muslim Americans and a ban on all Muslims traveling to the U.S. would both be on the table.

When students head home for winter break these comments and those of other politicians will no doubt be heavily discussed at dinner tables and holiday gatherings. Some students will huddle with their family and discuss their concern, and in some cases fear, over the wave of hate and xenophobia that has been propelled forward by acts of horror both at home and abroad.

Other students will visit with family, some familiar, some distant, who may echo their support for Trump's proposals.

Students must speak up. They must talk about their black, Hispanic and Muslim friends and classmates. They must challenge the narrative that "these people" are dangerous. Rapists. Terrorists.

Students have a unique outlook and opportunity to look family members in the eye and say: "These people are my friends. We learn together. We work together. We laugh together. We dream together. When you narrow their existence down to their race and the actions of a few misguided souls, you not only marginalize them but offend me."

There is no greater holiday gift a young person can give to a family member than the gift of perspective and to demonstrate, as author David Foster Wallace said, "A real education has almost nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with simple awareness."

James Hultgren

Lombard

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