This is not what I planned on writing about this week. This is not what I expected to hear about last Wednesday night while I was watching television with my parents. But it happened.

In Chicago, four African American young adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 24 kidnapped a white special needs teenager. That alone is enough to outrage millions of Americans. What made it worse was the fact that the suspects live streamed the entire event on Facebook. You can see the original 30-minute video here, but I must warn you, it’s incredibly graphic and the language is very strong. I myself couldn’t make it to the end.

I was sickened by this act of racism and hate. Yes, this was RACISM. In the video, the suspects can be clearly heard saying “F*** Donald Trump! F*** white people! F*** white people!” Now there are people out there that say people of color cannot be racist because they don’t have the “institutional power”; they can only be prejudiced against. That's probably one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Racism is defined as the hatred or intolerance of another race, and I think this classifies as a racist hate crime.

However, some in the mainstream media would disagree. Take Bernie Sander’s press secretary, Symone Sanders, for example: “We cannot callously go around classifying things as a hate crime.” Or Don Lemon who responded to political commentator, Matt Lewis, who said the entire incident was “evil”: “I don’t think it’s evil. I think these are young people, and I think they have bad home training.” WHAT?!! How can the kidnapping and torture of a mentally ill young man not be just plain evil? (Watch full segment)The suspects have since been arrested without bail on four charges, including hate crime.

In an interview with CBS Chicago, President Barack Obama condemned the “despicable" crime but believes race relations aren’t any worse than when he began his first term. From those that I’ve talked to recently, that is a bald faced lie. Some even believe it hasn’t been this bad since the Civil Rights movement.

I despise racism and hate of any kind. It kills me that we use race as an excuse to treat each other as less than equal human beings. Racial divides are tearing our once united nation apart. Hate is not welcome here, and that goes for both sides. We cannot keep living this way. We need to stop pointing fingers or calling names, and realize that we are all still people and every life still matters.