As a nation, we are slowly crumbling into a hole of racial tension that has been growing deeper and deeper for some time now. Fueled by the media’s portrayal of incidents in the past couple of years, our communities are quickly becoming divided by race. Our hometown cities are broken and burning as violent riots use political disparities as a reason to vandalize hundreds of businesses and areas of government and private property nationwide. In many of my previous articles, I have refused to take a stance on many controversial issues that I am passionate about (something that is very hard for me). However, in this article, I won’t be hiding behind this idea of political correctness or trying to remain neutral. This past week, this situation became personal as protestors destroyed the city that I call home.

In 2015, police officers in the United States shot and killed almost twice the number of white men compared to the number of black men that were also shot and killed by police. According to data compiled by The Washington Post, 50 percent of the victims of fatal police shootings were white, while 26 percent were black. At this point, people immediately argue that the scenarios surrounding the deaths of men like Eric Garner and Michael Brown were completely unjust -- and I agree.

But, have you ever heard of Dylan Noble?

No. You have not. You have heard Michael Brown’s name because the media has made it hard to forget for over a year now. Dylan Noble was a 19-year-old boy who lived in Fresno, California. Suspected of carrying a rifle, he was shot multiple times at close range after confronting police. After his death, it was revealed that he was unarmed.

Dylan Noble is white. More importantly, Dylan Noble is not black.

Dylan Noble’s life was just as important as Michael Brown’s life -- but that isn’t what the media feeds us because the headline of a white male being brutally shot dead by a white police officer doesn’t attract the same amount of viewers as a headline that sparks continual racial hatred.

It isn’t our fault. As humans, we band together as groups based off of how we feel about certain concepts. The way the media continually fuels the divide between white and black by highlighting every act of violence shown towards blacks specifically by white police insures that both races only see the other as the enemy. As the media time and time again forces us to watch these instances of police brutality, we time and time again only receive half of the story. Never once have I read an article about one of these occurrences from the eyes of the police officer. I doubt I ever will.

Many of the videos I have seen such as the video of Eric Garner telling the world that he couldn't breathe infuriated me. But, as a nation, we are so focused on the fact that the man who crushed Eric Garner's windpipe was white -- instead of the fact that he was just a man who killed another man. When will the time come that we emphasize individual lives over his or her race? When will a human being's death be seen as the loss of innocence rather than a racial act? These are the questions that our nation deserves answers to and it is time for us to come together as Americans and demand these answers.