Of course I get writer's block way too many times. My head has so many stories and ideas floating around inside-things I need to get off my chest but don't quite know how. I find myself going through recent news articles and thinking, "No, that keeps happening, that's old news. Nobody will be reading that." And the cycle continues.
Isis is a looming threat, creating a fear in nations across the globe due to their horrific acts of crimes against humanity. More and more American servicemen and servicewomen are coming home in flag-covered caskets everyday due to war on foreign soil.
Deaths due to police brutality are making the headlines each and every day. We as a nation are becoming more and more terrified of the police who were initially placed there to enforce the laws-not break them. It is getting so out of hand that The Washington Post keeps a live running tally of the victims of police brutality that you can pull up on your browser at any time.
Riots are breaking out to protest the deaths of nearly a thousand police killings in 2015 and over five hundred deaths so far this year. As a result, more good people have died and more families have mourned the loss of their own. Doesn't an eye-for-an-eye make the whole world blind?
White men have become so powerful in today's society that they are still the ones in control of women's bodies. New York State just passed a bill that takes a tax off of tampons-a monthly necessity for all women. Not that I'm celebrating that; that tax should not have been there in the first place! In the past few years we have seen great milestones set in women's history: Plan B moving into aisles of pharmacies and oral contraceptives becoming more accessible. But let's talk about abortion laws. Why don’t we have a say yet? It is 2016 and women still do not have full control over their own bodies. DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT? Of course, that's why it's making headlines weekly but still nothing of significant value has been done to give women a voice.
So what can I write about today? Maybe the growing number of rape and sexual assault cases thrown out because of biased judges or the victim was, "Asking for it!" Enough on what she was wearing. Enough on how much she had to drink. She has a name and she is human. And there are thousands more women just like her.
Our country is divided on issues such as gun control. Some think guns are evil, but I was raised on the beliefs that guns are there to protect us and the people who use them against innocent lives are evil. The people who use guns without proper safety training and certification are careless. Sure, a gun can misfire-it happens. But with a growing black market and people possessing bad intentions, that is bound to happen too. Things do need to change.
This morning when I sat down to my laptop I thought, "What can I write that they haven't read five times already today?" Well this isn’t the atmosphere our families envisioned us growing up in nor the "American Dream" we all were told we'd achieve some day. This is The United States of America in the twenty-first century and yes, all of this is really happening.
