BY MIRINISA STEWART-TENGCO '17
The past 24 hours have been a steady state of emotional upheaval for so many of us. I, a white-passing American citizen, have been crying today knowing that so many people who have shown me nothing but love and kindness throughout my time here at Mount Holyoke are now facing the alarming possibilities of hate crimes, deportation of themselves or family members and maybe even an inability to return to this school after going home. But as much as I have expressed my own anger and found nothing but solidarity and support, I would strongly urge all of us to pull back on the desire to vocally hate particular members of our community. We should not be using what voice we have to denounce others when that won't move us forward — to try to assign fault for our current reality — when the reality is that we have a new president-elect and we could be using that same energy and voice to build each other up and to ensure that this result does not happen again. The next national elections, in which we have the chance to take back the Senate and possibly even the House, are just two years away. Let's get moving.