John 15:13 said it best "Greater love has no one than this that he lay his life for his friends." Throughout 2016 with acts of brutality on law enforcement stretching from Charlotte to Dallas, New Orleans and every region in between my question remains: How can you take the life of someone doing their job to protect the community? Many people may think of my view as a "White conservative" view where I don't understand, and maybe I don't understand however what I do understand is hate on any race is wrong. New Orleans had policer officers shot in July, and two of the officers were African American, hate is hate and wrong is wrong regardless of someones race. Police officers have families to go home to, children to raise, and a community to keep safe. Granted, there were situations where police officers made a wrong decision and took someone's life. One man who represents everything every American needs to be is the Free Hugs man.
The night in Charlotte when gun fire exploded an African American man crossed the lines of diversity and gave a white police officer a hug, and the two have since been reunited and formed a life long friendship. I will never understand hate, I will never understand discrimination of any race between another race, and I will never understand why people choose the route of violence over peace. It may possibly be due to we see violence in the news more than we see good news stories and the "bad" ones have become sickly the "norm." As someone who is a daughter, sister, and friend I will never be able to imagine losing a parent, sibling, or friend due to acts of brutality between humans, at the end of the day we are all human.
How can we be bigger, better people when we see acts of terror every night in our nation? We can start with ourselves and our every day interactions. Looking at people deeper than their skin color, hijab, or habit. We need to look at people as people, who have feelings like us and who have families regardless of how they physically look. My life motto has always been "Be kind to others, you never know what someone may be going through." I look at people through looking in their eyes to who they are as a person. It can be challenging as Americans to differentiate between what we have become used to seeing on the news and what we know is morally right or wrong. I hope every person can start with today, use today to make a change, to reach out to someone society tells you not to. We all need to have a little bit of the Free Hugs inspiration, role model in us.
