Tea Time with Tagwa: Love comes naturally. Hate is learned.

Tagwa Shammet, Opinions Editor

Tea timers, today I want to share something that truly baffled me. I was sitting on my couch on a beautiful Sunday morning, recovering from a successful Halloweekend. My roommates and I were gathered in the living room when one of them shared the scariest story of the weekend. 

On Oct. 25, the White House threw its annual Halloween party meant for the children of executives, VIPs, staffers and other important White House employees. A night of candy from the president and first lady, paper planes from the vice president and an oh-so-wonderful game that teaches children hate.

Children were given paper blocks that they wrote their names on, then they pasted them to the wall. Seems harmless, right? Well, this wasn’t just any wall. That’s right tea timers, Donald Trump and his administration encouraged their children to put the blocks on “The Wall” — the infamous barrier that’s meant to separate Mexico and the United States of America.

Let’s dissect this real quick. I truly don’t care where you stand on the topic of immigration; your ignorance doesn’t interest me. However, allowing your child to participate in a game that endorses xenophobia makes you a terrible parent. Period.

“The Wall” this president is so keen on building is meant to blockade the migration of people into the United States. This country does not belong to the white man; it belongs to Native Americans. If it were up to them, none of us would be here either. At least the immigrants of this country are extending the courtesy of not raping, beating and slaughtering every citizen as European colonizers did to indigenous people. “The Wall” is a representation of how much hatred flows in the veins of the administration and everyone who follows them.

We’ve all heard the saying “love comes naturally, hate is learned.” Here is a prime example of that phrase. To all the parents who let their kids indulge in this game: You have single-handedly taught your child that it’s completely acceptable to hate someone based on something they cannot control. Pulling your kids toward you every time a black person walks by, telling them that Islam promotes violence or advocating for a president that hates everyone who doesn’t look like him makes you an educator of hate.

Newsflash to all those parents, not every kid in the world is a straight, cisgender, white boy. You cannot train your kids to be as uneducated and narrow-minded as you. We get it, you hate black people, you think immigrants should go back to their country and being gay is a sin. 

I hate to break it to you, but I genuinely don’t care about your opinion. To me, it’s irrelevant — just like you.

The future of this country belongs to our youth. Let’s get real. This “melting pot” concept does not and can never exist in this country as long as people continue to teach their children their spiteful ways. Learn from history. I would prefer to not go back to the Jim Crow era, back to Japanese internment camps, back to the abhorrence that fueled this country. 

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. So, I’m not going out of my way to educate 60-year-old white men on the fact that this country was never theirs to begin with. However, I won’t be allowing the false advertising that this country is the white man’s land or that colonizers such as Christopher Columbus are our saviors. You don’t get a free pass for brainwashing your children with your bigotry just because you’re in the White House.

It’s been established that the Trump administration is full of some musty Islamophobic, xenophobic, homophobic — and whatever other prejudices you can think of — racists. They can carry on their ways; they won’t be in the White House for much longer. Nevertheless, we are the future of this nation. We must continue to enlighten each other and restore the love and compassion that comes naturally to all of us. And that’s the tea.