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.

There is a cultural shift happening in the United States. Young people are taking to the streets and demanding action on gun reform and school safety. The ones who are old enough are registering to vote. They are creating real change and it’s going to last.

The future leaders of our country are rising up. They are here to tell us that we have failed them so they are taking matters into their own hands. They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take our inaction anymore.

I, for one, am glad to see it. Thank you young people for showing up and speaking up in a big way for the kind of common sense change that I’m still baffled we adults could not accomplish.

Some adults wouldn’t listen to other adults when we spoke up to try to protect you. So, hopefully they will listen to you. I hope you will help guide us to a brighter future.

Here’s my appeal to you, young people, if you are reading this. Don’t stop with school safety. Keep going. Call the adult world out on all of our B.S. Help us change our culture in ways we can’t seem to do on our own. Use your idealism to promote a future in which men and women are equal, where people of all colors are treated fairly by law enforcement, where peace prevails and love becomes the law of the land.

We hear you, Young America. Keep speaking, keep marching, keep striving to build the world you want to live in.