Once again, two killings happened within 24 hours.
As usual, it produced a lot of outrage and a lot of talking, but few discussions, just a lot of the same arguments, viewpoints, and shared Facebook videos "destroying" either side.
Of course, situations like these tend to get people pretty heated up. It's likely they're personally invested in these racial issues. I know I am, and to watch as others attempt to defame a movement that fights for justice is a very hurtful thing to see.
The Black Lives Matter movement exists to fight for justice in the absence of it. Despite that, too many times, a case where a black person was killed is brought to the attention of the public only to watch as the trial of the killer is warped into a trial of the victim's character.
We'll watch and see why this person deserved to die. We'll watch, in the case of video evidence, as protocols are broken and situations are overlooked to justify the death of this person. Can you not understand why we hurt?
Whenever these events happen, it's all too obvious to us, the black community, that we could be the next hashtag.
These cases have many consistencies, but the most glaring is the color of the victim's skin. That is also the one consistent factor that seems to create the need to justify their murder. Despite having video evidence where we can see everything that was done wrong, it's the victim that's at fault apparently. How could we not be hurt by that?
Justice desires to be a simple thing. It seems it should be. It's this idea that something will be treated fairly despite the variables. If certain conditions are met, then justice dictates that the outcome of those conditions will be the same, if not similar. Despite that idea, justice isn't served. We look on as the conditions are met and yet seemingly because of the variables, a different outcome to these conditions are shown. We see that the variable of skin color can determine the likelihood of justice.
These are hard things to come to terms with, and therefore, we fight against it.
Is that wrong? Naturally no, and so we do what we can to at least bring attention to these issues. That would be the bare minimum for something so obvious. We'll march, we'll sit during an anthem that we feel glorifies this kind of injustice, we'll do whatever we can just to get people to simply acknowledge that a problem exists and to our surprise, there's push-back. Supposedly, we're not protesting the right way?
These issues are very personal to people. They're personal to me, and so it's only natural that they'll stir a person up. All I can suggest is that you look for more understanding on the things that tend to be misunderstood. If we're looking to learn, rather than shut down or say our piece, than maybe we'll see more civility. From there, maybe it'll get us closer to racial reconciliation.
