Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Today we live in a nation divided. A nation divided by hatred, violence, bigotry and ignorance. A nation divided by mere hashtags. Today we are faced by two trending hashtags across social media sites: #bluelivesmatter and #blacklivesmatter. People feel as if they are forced to take a side. Either they stand with police officers and the criminal justice system or they stand with the African-American community.
This past Thursday, June 7, five police officers were shot and killed at a Black Lives matter protest in Dallas, Texas. These police officers never perpetrated any racially-motivated violence. They never betrayed the oath they took, swearing to protect and serve all people. However, they were brutally murdered because they took that oath. They were killed because they are police officers, trying to protect and serve. They were killed because of today’s divided society, ruled by social media and hashtags. People feel as if they have to side with the blue or the black; the police officers or the African-American community. This is not a choice we have to make. We can support police officers while still believing that all people, regardless of race, should be treated equally. Not all police officers are racist. Not all police officers have power trips and go out attempting to assert this dominance. Not all police officers want to hurt us or start their day with the intention of hurting black people, Hispanic people, Asian people or white people. This small minority of police officers that do desire to hurt people, whether based on the color of their skin or the type of shoes they are wearing, should not impact our view of the entire police force. We should not be scared of those attempting to protect and serve because of one bad cop, nor should we aim to hurt these officers because of the occupation they selflessly chose.
We do not have to pick a side. We do not have to choose to be a supporter of #bluelivesmatter or #blacklivesmatter. We can support those many good police officers and desire equality. We can look negatively upon those few cops who choose to be bigoted and choose to hurt people because of the pigmentation of their skin. We can look negatively upon those protestors who want to hurt police officers because of the actions of a select few. These people supposedly fighting for equality are going out attempting to hurt people based on nothing besides their occupation or the fact that they are not a racial minority.
My heart hurts for the families and friends of the officers killed in Dallas because of ignorance and hatred. The suspect admitted that his goal was to kill people, especially white officers, and to upset white people. This incident should upset us all, regardless of our race. Innocent officers were killed and we have to stand by the police force and those officers that truly are out there to help us. We should be equally troubled by the murder of innocent black men, such as Alton Sterling and Eric Garner, as we are by the murder of these five officers. Mourning the killings of people based on their race, then praising the murder of police officers just because they are officers does not make you a good person. It makes you part of the problem-- part of the group of people that need to open their eyes are realize that we are all humans. We are in this crazy world together and we need to end this antipathy.
As Jon Stewart said, “You can truly grieve for every officer who’s been lost in the line of duty in this country, and still be troubled by cases of police overreach, those two ideas are not mutually exclusive. You can have high regard for law enforcement and still want them to be held to high standards.” We need to stand by the blue and by the black community. The only way for this hatred and violence to end is if we all come together as Americans. We need to come together as a single people, not as a society divided by race or occupation or political belief. We are all humans, and we need to act like it.
