She’s wearing a Women’s March t-shirt with pride. He’s white and young standing boastfully in his “Make America Great Again” t-shirt. She’s black with large curly hair and a voice so loud no one else seems to be heard.  He’s short and brown surrounded by his large family.

She’s about to travel home to her two daughters she’s their hero. He will soon enter college where he plans to study law because his father wasn’t able to. She sings in her church’s choir, she is trying to spread word of the revival. He hasn’t seen his family all week because he’s been gone working to support them.

You feel bad for judging based off of their appearances, right? You might have thought to yourself while reading the first four sentences “she’s probably just another loud-mouthed liberal” or “he’s just some white, entitled, fraternity boy” or any other stereotypical comment.  Today’s society and common generalization is not few and far between. It’s easy to see in our world today with the constant hate and division over race, politics, and gender, that someone might judge or even hate someone over stereotypes. It’s scary how easy it is to let these thoughts slip into your mind.

These people’s, or anyone else’s, appearance, race, gender, political stance or anything else that is irrelevant to determining if they are a good, kind and loveable person should not matter. This should not bring hate into the minds of any person. The world today is filled with trouble and turmoil, but how many of those things could be solved simply by less hate over petty stereotypes? All of those problems could be done and over with if we all just loved each other despite the differences.

Our differences should not divide us but ultimately unite us. A fierce conservative and die-hard liberal should be able to sit down together and be friends even though their political views hardly ever agree. A father who disagrees with strong feminist beliefs should be able to welcome his hard-fighting feminist daughter home from college with a hug.

However, because of blatant stereotyping created by older generations that bleeds through into the next, it seems impossible to stop this trend, but it isn’t impossible; if we start to discourage these things now, a new generational trend of kindness and acceptance would soon become the normal.

Next time you look at a person consider what they are as a real person and not a religion, race, or political party. Consider their humanity and the love that they deserve. Consider the way in which you would want them to treat and look at you.