Come Together with Kindness

Come+Together+with+Kindness

Just because they’re celebrities, it doesn’t mean they’re more informed than anyone else. In fact, it seems as though celebrity opinions, specifically their political views, have a direct impact on their fans, which leads them to follow an opinion that they don’t necessarily agree with.

Realistically, celebrities tend to use their social media outlets to take a “knowledgeable” political stance. Most of the time, their thoughts are probably unresearched, and moreso rants than they are actual opinions. But why are they exhibiting negative stances, rather than exuberating positivity? Take Chrissy Teigen for example.

Teigen is known for her negative tweets against Donald Trump, so much that Trump actually blocked her. She uses twitter as an outlet to portray her clear hatred for the president, even tweeting, “@realdonaldtrump hey! been a while. I [really] hate you.”

Sure, Teigen and other celebrities can have their own opinion, but due to their popularity and large scale of followers, it’s inevitable that fans will agree with what they have to say. The list of celebrities who use their fame to speak against Trump in a pessimistic light is ongoing – Meryl Streep, Taylor Swift, John Legend, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Jennifer Lawrence, Sophia Bush, Lorde, Amy Schumer, Zendaya, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Beyonce, Madonna, Angelina Jolie – shall I go on?

Said celebrities, along with about – well, pretty much everyone in Hollywood, choose to use their platform to protest against Trump, and remind their audience of how terrible the world currently is. Instead of bringing light to such negative things, forcing more controversy and division in society, why not use your platform to highlight on how peace can bring people together? The world needs to shift over from hatred and onto better things, like togetherness and unity.

“The only thing that we all know, we all appreciate in one another, is kindness. This has to come before all things.”

— Lady Gaga

While Lady Gaga, and Miley Cyrus are on the list of people who are anti-Trump, they are also amongst the few who have learned to switched gears, and used their fame to talk about purifying the country together, rather than against each other. Their feelings and perspectives are raw, intelligent, and uplifting.

Lady Gaga met with Dalai Lama last year to discuss how we, as humans, can keep the peace and refine the country collaboratively.

Gaga said, “In times of chaos and crisis, what we all tend to do, right, is start pointing fingers at where we think the bad guys are, where the evil is. We all start arguing.”

In global instances that society should be facing and combatting together, we are instead deciding who did what wrong, picking and choosing who the real victims are. These should not be our immediate responses.

As Americans, we need to realize that that’s the one thing we have in common: we’re Americans. There have been such tremendous issues amongst the people since the election of Trump. Hate grew, people began to decipher who was a terrible person and who wasn’t, and opinions grew heated and malicious. America has become more divided than ever, as people who were against Trump started #notmypresident on Twitter.

Protesting has become a social norm, and violence is always the answer. Politics have drawn a strong division between us, the people of this country.

Despite a difference in opinion, America must come together with a common goal: kindness. The world is full of unfortunate events, some more publicized than others, so why add to it?

“Please do not forget that hatred – or evil, whatever you want to call it – it’s intelligent… it’s smart, and it’s invisible. It doesn’t have a color. It doesn’t have a race. It doesn’t have a religion. It has no politics,” Gaga said, “It’s an invisible snake that while it is planning to make its attack, it is thinking to itself that it’s going to divide my enemy into smaller, less strong groups, and then i’m going to make them hate each other, so that it’s easier to take them down. And as we’re all yelling at each other trying to figure out which group it is that’s causing the problem – evil is winning.”

It takes so much effort to be a terrible person, to be evil – to insult someone, to tell someone they are less of a person based on your own insecurities, or to physically harm someone for your own benefit. To be kind, to want to do something nice for someone, to hear someone else’s point of view, to help someone in need… all of these qualities are hard to find in a person today, but they shouldn’t be. These should be the common notions of the typical American person. This is the country that we are shaping for our own children to grow up in.

“We have to get rid of those labels. These different factions – gay, straight, rich, poor, mentally ill, not mentally ill, gun owner, not gun owner – none of this can matter anymore,” said Gaga.

How a person identifies himself should not dismantle your ability to be kind. There is an evil pool of people in the world who will do anything to break someone down, especially someone who they don’t identify with or understand. Protesting, an angry tweet, or bullying someone online will benefit no one, especially the one starting it. Kindness will bring us together. Kindness can be the opinion that we all agree with.