When did race and color define right from wrong?

I continually ask myself this question as I turn on the nightly news, that I so desperately despise watching. I’ve been in the ‘hottest’ spot in journalism’s, activist’s, and bystander’s eyes, South Carolina, but I will not be preaching the mantra: Black Lives Matter. *Don't stop here, please continue reading.* This is nothing against African Americans, and this is not because I am white, I am hispanic. However, neither my race nor color should have anything to do with my confusion and irritation with this blasphemy statement.

If there were genocide in this country against African Americans then yes, I would be taking part in this campaign immediately. But there is not, no one is targeting African Americans, contrary to some beliefs. The campaign has unfortunately gone from aiding those whose civil rights have been questioned to a hiatus movement of prejudice against particularly white police officers. No one has devised a nationwide plot to slay countless lives in the black community. Yes, there have been injustices that have occurred, but retaliating many lives for that of five or a few more is mind-boggling. We don’t see the Jewish communities still trying to punish the German and Aryan people. Each culture has had their problems with another race or country; but we do not obtain the right to hold something so deep in our roots, and thoughts buried with those ancestors over something that occurred last week.

Are there white police officers that have brutalized African Americans for what seems to many spectators as racial crimes? Yes. Are there black police officers that have done the same? Yes – but they aren’t exploited in the media. Are there white police officers that had taken down guilty or threatening suspects that were black? Yes. Are there white police officers that have taken down other white perpetrators and killed them in doing this? Yes – but that’s not controversial enough to take notice of. Are there whites that are still uninviting or prejudice towards blacks? Yes. Are there blacks that believe most whites are against them, causing prejudice towards their counters? Yes. Are there blacks that are simply prejudice against whites? Yes. Are there people like me who see an individual as a person and not a color? I have run into only a handful of brave people to side with me, but we have unfortunately died out in prior occurrences these past few months; the worst part is that this reaction to not question is from fear. Fear from being labeled as a prejudiced person or worse, a racist. In a sense, the country is undergoing another age of McCarthyism, but instead of simply one man making accusations, it can be anyone that is African American. But it is time that people take a step back and see that not everyone in the world is going to love one another. No matter how many Miss America and Miss Universe pageants there are; world peace is nearly impossible to obtain when we are troubled with our own national peace.

When it comes to the circumstantial upset via the media in the past year or so, no one cares to look into these victims’ lives, or the officers/perpetrator’s situation before the violence was carried out. We simply stop at the view of a white brutalizing or killing a black individual and foresee it as a hate crime. These situations most definitely occur, I am not naïve nor narrow minded towards this. While at a College Media Conference this past weekend, we had a closing Keynote Presentation on the Black Lives Matter with the head of the Austin chapter in Texas speaking. The man, Nelson Linder, was asked on his reaction to seeing police officers on the street and his response was, “I try to think of the cause and not the effect, I question how they can be so cruel and brutal.” There was no pretense of the officer being in a situation of arrest, or an encounter with another black individual at that, yet his mind went directly to his hatred with just seeing, or rather in this case, picturing a police officer. This was a prime example, and reminder that hate crimes are more than just a white against a black; it’s the retaliation as well.

We do not live in a world with Hammurabi's Code, in fact, the United States of America was not even a thought at that time, so who began this mindset? Who thought that it would be a good idea to elevate the stakes of an eye for an eye, and create one life to twenty or more lives? What happened to those peaceful protests that our constitution commends us to have? Why are the few but respectful peaceful protests not aired on the media for everyone to see either? How did brutality and burning of cities overcome the progress that this country has made in the past years? How did our outlook on the people of this country switch back to the ways of segregation? We are all human. We are all citizens. We are all trying to make ourselves known in the world. We are all looking forward to our lives, our children’s lives, and even our grandchildren’s lives. So why is everything in regards to color and race once more when there are many times it isn’t in regards to it at all.

There has been more than one time where I have not chosen to got with an individual’s idea, who happened to be African American, who then responded to my denial or an issue raised ­– with the phrase, “Why, because I’m black?” When not one ounce of the situation had to do with race in any dimension. You don’t hear me or other individuals going around trying to justify a loss or disagreement with the phrase, “Why, because I’m hispanic?” nor do you hear the phrase, “Why, because I’m white?” Although there are many times when this statement is used playfully and jokingly, there are many times now that it is not. That phrase is one of entitlement, and if you don’t work for it, you do not deserve it. Not everything in this country is good, but it is not all bad either. There are good people and bad people, racists and non-racists, there is cruel police brutality and some that are legitimate police action that gets turned into an appearance of one, there are the blind and the ignorant, but that is how this world works.

I support every single race known to mankind, I am not biased nor prejudice. I am simply an observer who wishes this country will move from viewing each other and situations as black and white; because when I look around on my college campus and outside of it, I only see gray. So let’s begin taking our 50 states and begin to all see the same shade of gray.