They say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Here in the United States, we’ve spent the last couple of years watching what happens when tolerance begins to decline. Sometimes referred to as “The Trump Effect,” we have seen a rise in hate crimes, and minority individuals are reporting increased hostility towards them – especially Latinos/as and Muslims.

We need to do all we can to reverse this trend. I believe that white men play an especially important role in increasing tolerance here in the U.S. as we tend to hold power and it is largely white men who are responsible for increasing acts of intolerance. So, white men who are tolerant must speak up. We must share the truth that all people are equal and deserve to be treated with respect.

It is for this reason that I am changing my philosophy of principles for a better world from RECK to TRECK. The acronym TRECK stands for Tolerance, Respect, Empathy, Compassion, Kindness.

Essentially, it comes down to this: I believe that in order for some people to learn to respect others, they must first learn to view everyone through a lens of greatly increased tolerance. Only by accepting that all people deserve tolerance will they discover that respect too is possible.

I hope other white men will join me in speaking out. When you hear intolerant speech by your friends and family, call it out. Stand up for minorities behind closed doors so that in the public sphere we can see an increase in tolerance, equality, justice, and peace.

I believe that the majority of people believe we should live in a world where we accept people of all races, creeds, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc. as equal. We just need to be vocal about it so that we can drown out the fringe of intolerance.

Future generations will judge us by whether or not we stood up for marginalized populations now.

This is the time to act.

We can make a difference.

Join me in treating all people with tolerance, respect, empathy, compassion, and kindness.

Peace.