I have tried really hard to avoid this controversial topic, but after seeing a Facebook post saying "Blue lives don't matter," I will no longer stay quiet. Before I get into my opinion on the topic, here are some information and statistics I have found throughout my research.
The recent trending hashtags include #blacklivesmatter, #bluelivesmatter and #alllivesmatter.
Black Lives Matter: According to USA Today, the hashtag has been around since the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin. The directive of Black Lives Matter is to deal with anti-black racism and to push for black people's right to live with dignity and respect.
Blue Lives Matter: According to Blue Lives Matter, the goal of the organization is to honor and recognize the actions of law enforcement to strengthen the public support from an understandably naive society.
All Lives Matter: According to USA Today, saying that "All Lives Matter" has been silencing the Black Lives Matter movement.
According to the Washington Post, 522 people have been shot and killed by police in 2016.
According to the Washington Post, police officers have killed twice as many white people as black people in 2015.
According to the officer down memorial page, 62 police officers have died in 2016 in the line of duty.
According to Mapping Police Violence, police officers killed at least 102 unarmed black people in 2015.
After reading various viewpoints on the situations and reading multiple statistics on this topic, I have one word for everybody. Equality. Whether you are black, white, gay, straight, a police officer or a waitress or any other thing that makes you different, we are all the same. We should be one. Every single life matters.
To say that "Blue lives don't matter" just because around 500 police officers have wrongfully killed people this year is wrong. You're forgetting about the 900,000 other officers in the country. For police officers to judge someone based on their ethnicity is wrong too. They are judging everybody, based on a fraction of people.
You can't judge all doctors based on the few that abuse their power and write prescriptions their patients don't need.
You can't judge all businessmen on the fraction of them that create Ponzi schemes.
Police shouldn't judge a group of people based on their race, religion or sexual orientation, nor should we judge an entire profession based on the actions of a few.
So I offer this thought to everybody:
Don't judge a book by its cover. Treat people the way you want to be treated.
As former president George W. Bush said, "Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions."
