Last Thursday--July 7th, 2016, was a day in my life that I doubt I’ll forget for a while.
I was watching Big Brother. It was a little late and I didn’t have anything else to do the next day, so I decided to watch a little bit of the nightly news before heading to bed. At first, it was mostly coverage of protests about Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two innocent black men who were ruthlessly murdered by police within the span of two days. I was interested in what these people had to say, especially on live TV, so I kept watching.
After several minutes, I suddenly heard the reporter’s tone change. I wasn’t quite paying attention, but I did hear the reporter talk; he said something like “this just in, reports of shots fired have just come from the police brutality protest in Dallas.” I immediately looked up from my computer and at the TV screen, to confirm what I just heard. I thought I’d heard something wrong, but lo and behold, I see the same thing up there. The headline was saying things like “shots fired at Dallas protest” and “active shooter situation in Dallas, Texas”. That's when I really started paying attention.
I started flipping through several different news stations to get more information from different sources. I was following the whole thing as it happened, and it got worse as time went on. Soon I heard “2 people shot at Dallas protest”, then “2 officers in critical condition” then “about a dozen wounded; suspect has been cornered”. It was interesting because it seemed like I was exactly up to date with it, and I was glued to the screen seeing how this tragedy would unfold.
The next day I wake up, and it turns out that 5 police officers were killed in total, and several civilians wounded, all due to a military veteran who had also been upset about the recent killings of black men. This particular event hit me hard, and for a few different reasons.
I myself am a person of color. I've had a good amount of experience and research with racism, sometimes dealing with it head-on and sometimes delving deeper in so I can better understand what my people have been through. I also strive to be well-educated about the effects of racism on people today. Hence, I have followed the Black Lives Matter movement quite closely, and have been examining how they react to different situations. These protests didn't surprise me at all. I, like many others, have noticed that Black Lives Matter hasn't focused on black lives as a whole, like they say they do. Rather, they only focus on black lives in relation to white police officers--which isn't fair, I believe.
The part that did surprise me, though, was Micah Xavier, the ruthless man who carried out the attack. Judging by what he said to the negotiators, some of what he said made sense. He was fed up with how police were treating black people, and wanted someone to make a change. But i couldn't make sense of how such a large amount of hatred could build up in him that he decided to go out and kill people. He stated that he wanted to kill white people and that he hated the police, showing just how hateful he was. This all really saddened me, and really showed me how serious the issue is. Black Lives Matter, police brutality; it's all now so much more important and so much scarier than before now that this has happened. I suppose I'll have to rethink my activism and stress more peaceful solutions to the world’s problems. Other than that, all i can do is mourn the victims of another unnecessary shooting.
Sources/links:
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dallas-shootin...
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/08/us/philando-castile-...
