There is no room for hate or bigotry in Riverside, Illinois
In our 10+ years of reminiscing with all of you on Facebook, reliving past events as well as current fun times in the town we all love, we have never seen any hateful or bigoted comments until this past week when the Village voted to fly the LGBQT+ flag.
It was actually quite sad how much hate speech was written by so many people. Many comments were deleted by the people who posted them. Many comments were challenged back. Many comments were just so horrible they were deleted by the administrators.
The beauty of the Internet and Facebook is that folks can disagree on a subject, they can defend themselves and be challenged back, but once hate speech is written online with your name, it is there forever. Yes, Facebook saves everything, even if you delete your hateful comment. Oh, and those Angry and Sad emoji's - they are there forever as well with your name.
However, it was also wonderful to see how supportive the majority of you are, and love definitely overshadows hate. We run this page because we love the town we grew up in, where memories for life were made in the past and the present. Some of our families go back to 1906 being in this town.
Life is short, lose the hate, love your neighbors and embrace change. If you cannot accept that concept, then Riverside "Is Not Your Town". And no, you cannot have our names. We have had too many threats this week to count.
It was actually quite sad how much hate speech was written by so many people. Many comments were deleted by the people who posted them. Many comments were challenged back. Many comments were just so horrible they were deleted by the administrators.
The beauty of the Internet and Facebook is that folks can disagree on a subject, they can defend themselves and be challenged back, but once hate speech is written online with your name, it is there forever. Yes, Facebook saves everything, even if you delete your hateful comment. Oh, and those Angry and Sad emoji's - they are there forever as well with your name.
However, it was also wonderful to see how supportive the majority of you are, and love definitely overshadows hate. We run this page because we love the town we grew up in, where memories for life were made in the past and the present. Some of our families go back to 1906 being in this town.
Life is short, lose the hate, love your neighbors and embrace change. If you cannot accept that concept, then Riverside "Is Not Your Town". And no, you cannot have our names. We have had too many threats this week to count.
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