On a warm day here in Texas, I decided to avoid the sun and indulge on some television. Coincidentally, the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird was on that day. For those of you who do not remember the plot, it is the story of a white lawyer defending a black man who is accused of raping a white woman. The stage is set in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era. The story made me reflect on whether or not society has changed since then. Even today, I feel the need to talk about race in America because some things have remained the same.

While we don't live in such extreme social environments today, the tensions are rising and the racially charged situations are becoming more prevalent as we delve deeper into the 21st century. Most recently the city of McKinney, Texas has had to deal with the aftermath of a simple pool party gone wrong. The story went viral when a video of the incident was posted on the Internet. The video showed one of the police officers pinning a teenage black girl to the ground and pulling a gun on some others as an attempt to control the situation. Since then, many people have used social media to give their opinion about the situation before they were even aware of the facts and details of the incident.

As an African-American male myself, one would begin to question society. Yet, I find myself at a distance from situations that are deemed racially charged, not because I am insensitive or evading my responsibility as a human. I remain distant because I believe that there is a perspective that some choose to neglect because of their own prejudices or what they read in the media. Unfortunately, in most cases, I observed that it is the latter that has the most influence on people’s standpoint on things.

Today, the media has the power to edit real life accordingly to their own views. From BuzzFeed to Fox News, the angles are different and so is their political affiliation. The political spectrum often determines which news source we read and what we believe in. I won't go into the specifics of what I peruse through. However, I will say this: when it comes to the matter of society and its growth, whether it be about race or not your personal prejudices should never negatively influence the way you treat another person. Frankly, the only direction we should be focusing on is leaving your prejudices behind you and moving FORWARD.

Moving forward is the only way a society can grow and slowly learn from its history. Understandably, this is no easy task but the people within the system must change first for a society to change for the better. Has American exceptionalism disappeared? Have we failed our Founders and those who paved the path before us?

The only way those questions can be answered is through our actions. We all have to step up to the challenge to be each other's keeper, irrespective of race or creed. I know it's a tough idea to grasp. But when did the level of difficulty of something ever deem it impossible to achieve?

I have faith in our world; you should too, my friend.