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Trump and Biden Supporters at Peace

My neighborhood is diverse in more ways than one, and we somehow get along

Shefali O'Hara
2 min readSep 12, 2020
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

There is a huge Trump sign in one of my neighbor’s yards. It’s literally 6 feet across. A few houses down, there is a more tasteful Biden sign in another neighbor’s yard.

As far as I can tell, neither neighbor hates on the other. No one has stolen anyone else’s sign, or TP’ed anyone’s house.

I live in a diverse neighborhood. In fact, it’s a majority minority place. Only about 40% of the residents are white. About 30% are Latino. The rest are evenly split between Asians and blacks.

As far as voting preferences… from the impromptu conversations I’ve had with people — many are apolitical. They don’t like Trump but they aren’t enthused about Biden either. Mostly they are unhappy about Covid-19. They don’t think Trump has handled the crisis well but they’re not sure Biden would do better.

A few of my neighbors have taken part in the BLM protests. They wore masks and maintained social distance. Everything was peaceful and they’ve told me it was a powerful experience for them.

Some of the people who participated in BLM protests have American flags flying in front of their houses. A few of them are immigrants, and they come from countries where peaceful protests weren’t a thing.

They are proud to live in a country where people have the freedom to voice an opinion. I’m proud of that too.

I support my neighbors’ right to vote their conscience, even if I disagree with them. The other day, driving to the park with my dog, I waved at both the neighbor with the Biden sign and the one with the Trump sign. They both waved back.

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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