Don't Stand By Me, Stand With Me

The famous murder of Kitty Genovese. A young girl who had 38 witnesses to her murder but not one came to rescue her. This case leads to the further psychological and sociological research on a term of what later came to be known as “The Bystander Effect."

Basically, the Bystander Effect states that the more people there are in a situation, the less likely they are to come forward and do something about it.

Well in this situation, there are 300 million people.

And our problem?

No one wants to do anything until it gets personal.

Well, it’s getting really personal. Every single person in this country is being affected by all the choices that are being made, especially the ones who have to raise their future generations on this very land.

So this is for the children of America.

A time for movement. A time for change. A time to make a difference.

What kind of a future do you want? What kind of a future do you see right now?

The earth is dying. We don’t need scientists to tell us that either. Look around you. Look at the climate. Somehow no one finds a problem the tsunamis, floods, wildfires scaling the west coast or even Florida getting snow? No one seems to find something odd with a tropical state snowing?

That’s like calling for your dog but in comes a child and you kind of just deal with it because maybe you’ve seen him around the neighborhood and like. He doesn’t really fuss or make noise so you kinda just deal with it and give him the guest bedroom.

Because that’s a totally normal situation that you should be okay with, right?

So instead of being a bystander to the demise of our future generations, stand by me. Stand by us. All of us. All our white children who recognize their privilege and understand that it’s not fair for their colored brothers and sisters.

All our immigrant children who take the opportunities they have been given in this country and sacrifice their self-esteem and the comfort of their own skin to make it a better place for their children to live in. All our colored children who fight to raise a voice so none of their brothers or sisters will fall under the knife, or the gun rather, of all who chose to see the differences instead of the similarities.

Let’s rewrite the future instead of giving up halfway through writing the book, and then complaining about our pen running out of ink.

Let’s work on making it worth living.