Country singer and guitarist Lindsay Ell spent her Saturday (May 30) at Nashville's protest following the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, Minn., at the hands of a white police officer.

"We have to start speaking up and teaching each other there is only one kind of love," Ell reflected on Instagram following the protest. "Racism is a learned behavior and we are far too educated of a society to let this injustice continue to happen."

Below, Ell shares further thoughts about her decision to protest with her fellow Nashvillians and stand up against racism.

It is easy to pretend to support something and then still not outwardly do anything about it. It is easy to think that we live in a world that has overcome racism and that we treat our brothers and sisters as equals. But sadly, that is not the case.

It is hard is for me to even imagine what it’s like to be victim of negative profiling by authorities due to the color of my skin. The feeling it invokes honestly makes me sick.

To the family of George Floyd, countless other families and the black community as a whole: My heart breaks for you. It is completely unacceptable that, as a society, we have let racism and discrimination continue to permeate our culture. It has plagued our world for far too long, and the responsibility falls to each of us to bring about change now.

I attended the rally in downtown Nashville over the weekend. It was such a beautiful moment of people coming together to talk about love and stand up for one another. It was the perfect embodiment of "being the change you wish to see in the world."

In order for permanent change to occur, a new education becomes our responsibility. We must change the way we think, change the way our teachers and our children think. Racism can no longer be an unknowingly learned behavior that is fed to our next generation. It must stop, and it won’t stop in an environment of silence.

Justice is absolutely needed. Violence in any form cannot be acceptable. Hate does not defeat hate; only love can conquer hate. The true quality of a person is determined not only by their thoughts, but through their actions, and two wrongs never make a right.

We need to be this change, not create more hate and destruction around it. Let’s march and walk hand in hand, together. Let’s demonstrate and stand up in non-violent, peaceful protests. Let’s donate. Let’s pour love into each other’s hearts. Let’s educate ourselves and each other. Let’s have conversations that make us uncomfortable. Let’s elevate the voices of black people to achieve the justice and equality that everyone deserves.

We are not trying to start a fight -- we’re trying to end one. We will only accomplish this by coming together and demonstrating acts of love that reflect what’s in our hearts. And we keep doing that until there is no us vs. them, until it is just all of us, together.

Let’s use our voices to instill change in the spirit of one love. We are all created equal. Every single one of us.

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