Over the past few years, there has been so much turmoil in our world.

Alton Sterling, Michael Brown, Brock Turner, Dallas, Baltimore.

There has been so much hate and so much hurt.

I sat at my computer for a long time attempting to write an article in the wake of the chaos that has ensued these past few weeks. I am at a loss for words.

Before I go on, I want to say. There is no side here. I mourn for the loss of the brothers in blue who were killed in Dallas. I pray for their families and that they rest in peace. But I also mourn for those wrongly killed by police officers.

I am not on any side. Rather, I am in unity with human beings as a whole as we continue to struggle through the murky waters of "equality."

Here's a thing about equality: we claim that we have it and we deny that privilege exists. To me, that is embarrassing. That we can blindly turn our eyes to the privilege that our society has established and continues to permit. We claim we live in an equal world, yet how come women are still paid less, homosexuals still experience hate crime, and so on?

It's 2016. And we are still fighting for equal rights. We are still screaming, our voices tired, to be loved by a society that shames anyone who is different- anyone who is gay, lesbian, transgender, black, yellow, female.

It is 2016. Yet we are still protesting and rallying for rights that should have been granted a long time ago.

It is 2016. And men still make more than women in the same job, homosexual individuals are still experiencing hate crimes, rapists are sentenced to less time than drug dealers, people still cross to the other side of the street when a black man is walking towards them, and on and on and on it goes until my stomach curls and churns.

It is 2016. And none of us are equal, yet we claim to live in the land of equality. The land of the free. The home of the brave.

It is 2016. Yet some women are still held hostage by the chains of marriage to an abusive man. Some parents have to tell their children the correct way to respond to a cop in the hopes that their child comes home safe.

It is 2016. And I am disgusted by our world. We have lost touch with the ideal that America was founded on: a melting pot.

For being the "New World" we're pretty behind on the times. 44 presidents later and they've all been men. Cities revolt for their lost brothers and sisters via police brutality. Men are only sentenced to six months in jail for a rape.

It is 2016. Shouldn't things be different?

Can't we all stop hating and start loving. I want acceptance and peace.

I want my children to be raised in a world that is not cruel, discriminatory, racist, or sexist. I want my children to live in a world that is better. I want my children to grow old in a world that we fixed, that we made better. I hope you do too.

But in order for that to happen, we need to make a change. We need to accept that privilege exists, that we are not equal. And we need to dismantle the structure that we have created to make this happen. We need to start again in the hopes that we can create an equal and loving world for our children's sake.