We Americans constantly remind ourselves of how we serve as role models for the rest of the world. We are a society built on the prospect of freedom in a time where monarchies were absolute, and we continued to progress when other societies faltered. We as a nation were one of the biggest success stories of the 20^th century and we don’t let ourselves forget it.  

And yet, here we are today, an undeniably powerful and progressive country that is beginning show signs of intense polarization. Our extreme differences in opinion are beginning to divide our country past a point of unification through the nationalism or patriotism that once brought our country together.  

Because of this, we have been rendered incapable of compromise. We continue to persecute people for their differences, regarding it as righteous or even unpreventable rather than cowardly, anonymous and completely unnecessary. People are applauded for ignoring other perspectives and having an uncompromising nature even when this stubborn attitude is harmful to others. 

With this increasing polarization comes an increased intolerance for people’s differences as well as more intolerant action. When a crime is committed out of prejudice it is considered a hate crime. They can be motivated on the basis of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or on other grounds.  

Over the past three years as we have become more and more polarized, crimes of this nature have risen dramatically. From 2016 to 2017 the total number of reported hate crimes rose from 6,121 to 7,175, a 17 percent increase according to an annual FBI report on hate crimes. 

This statistic doesn’t even count the unreported hate crimes, which can be even more numerous than the reported ones, as only 12.6 percent of the agencies in the FBI report indicated that a hate crime had actually occurred as stated in a New York Times article on the subject.  

These statistics are staggering and just go to show that our extreme differences in opinion have gotten to a point where we seem incapable of settling our disputes civilly, which as a self-proclaimed role model for the rest of the world, is embarrassing and outright hypocritical.  

Despite this hypocrisy we turn a blind eye. The fact that so many hate crimes occur and aren’t even reported is a disgrace to the foundational ideals of America and to what we, as Americans, proclaim to stand for. A disgrace that we, as people who champion the right to live, to freely speak, and pursue happiness, should be outraged about.  

Hate crimes hinder people’s desire to speak freely or live happily. They allow entire groups of minorities to live in terror, fearing being killed or assaulted because of their status as a minority in a place where we are supposedly so proud of our diversity and freedom.  

These crimes threaten the pivotal ideals our society were built on and it’s time we become more outraged about it. It’s time for us to finally make the America the diverse, tolerant, and inclusive nation that we believe it to be. We need to ensure the right of people to be able to freely speak and pursue happiness without fear of persecution.