Headlines speak of tragedy, uncalled for death, and pure hatred, but is this what really is going on? Not I, nor can anyone, dismiss the unnecessary force taken against Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, but this is not the routine of every police officer. You cannot judge a majority by a minority, and regardless of the media's perception. Statistics are thrown left and right, and it is shockingly bone-chilling to see the odds put against minorities in our nation. Our nation has always claimed its accessibility of freedom and equality to be true, but we have been able to see the isolation of minorities since the origin of our nation. Native Americans forced from their own land and killed off by disease and slaughter. African Americans forced into slavery and treated as a fourth of a human-being. A whole race faced genocide under a cruel dictator, but instead of extending a hand we turned a cheek. Mexican Americans treated as a growing problem when they work the jobs most White Americans would not dare to take on. And now, Muslims and Syrians are denied freedom from their oppressors and made out as an enemy when they are merely begging for a life-line.
I do not want to shame the United States as a whole—for I am merely an outsider looking into issues that are deeper than any ocean—but I do call onto our great nation to simply: do better. To do better in righting the wrongs of its past and show compassion and the ability to change in these times of fear and scrutiny. What the people need to know is that change is coming, that their pain is being noticed, and that the mistakes made will not reoccur.
Rather than pick apart and criticize a movement that has brought millions together to fight for a worthy cause, I wish the media would address how the situation can be fixed; they should use their access into every home to bring awareness and create a space for discussion rather than feed their viewers an opinion and a stance. Rather than implement fear, feed knowledge. Create an equilibrium of headlines: with stories of persecution and stories of triumph where viewers can create their own opinions rather than grasping to the one they believe the majority would want them to agree with.
When the media forces an opinion onto its viewers, it results in radical actions. The shooting in Dallas is a prime example because the shooter portrayed anger and fear towards the police force as a whole and thus took those lives as though it made them even. The Dallas police force had no part in the previous wrongdoings of other police officers and deserved nothing but respect for their service. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. It is crucial that from these acts of hate we find acts of change and that we find the best way to make sure this cannot occur again but instead of with fear, with understanding, empathy, and reason. The media feeds fuel to an already untamed fired, and creates a wide-spread fear in unrealistic areas.
The issue at hand is real regardless of how common it occurs, but my main point is that the media should express its severity and explore a variety in opinions in fact in exchange for its current lunge to fear and oversimplifying a complicated situation. "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal'...And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true." -Martin Luther King Jr.
