When I awoke on the morning of July 8th, the first thing I did was check my phone to see what was going on in the world of social media. What I saw was the story about the Dallas shooting that occurred during a Black Lives Matter peaceful protest.
For those who do not know—although I’m sure most do by now—a Black Lives Matter peaceful protest gathered in response to the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile of Louisiana and Minnesota, respectively.
The peaceful gathering turned violent and chaotic when a single sniper, Army veteran Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, opened fire on the police near the protest. He killed five police officers and injured six more, as well as two civilians.
After reading as much as I could stomach that morning, I put my phone down, not in shock or disbelief, but in anger and exhaustion. Up to this point, I had become numb to all the senseless violence we have all been exposed to recently. I used to wake up, read about another shooting, and shrug.
It had become a regular occurrence. A weekly routine we all had to participate in.
Oh look, it’s that time of the week. Should be another mass shooting or bombing any minute now.
But when I read the Dallas story—well, that was the last straw.
I decided I didn’t care what happened in this messed up world anymore. It was too tiring keeping up with all the evil and hate. In her statement to the public, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch summed up my feelings on the recent shootings in one sentence. She said, “After the event of this week, Americans across our country are feeling a sense of helplessness, of uncertainty and of fear.”
But as the day went on, amidst my feelings of helplessness, uncertainty, and fear, my mind kept returning to the Dallas shooting. I decided I should at least read the whole story before completely cutting myself off from my weekly dose of human violence. I then read something I hadn’t seen before. An article reported the shooter’s last words before police killed him with a remotely controlled bomb robot.
Johnson made it clear that he was angry. Angry about all the shootings of black men and women by police. He said he wanted to kill police. He said he wanted to kill white people.
When I read that, my first thought was, “Hey, I’m a white person. Why does he want to kill me? I didn’t do anything.” That’s when something in my mind clicked.
I didn’t do anything.
I realized that although I had done nothing to spread hate and violence, I had done nothing to stop it either. I felt so ashamed, especially at my eagerness to turn my back on the world and try to shut myself away from the violence and evil.
But I’m not going to take the easy way out. Giving up is the easiest thing in the world to do, but the easy way is not always the right way. Those who resort to violence and killing are taking the easy way.
While he committed a terrible crime, Johnson was right about one thing: white people, not just cops, are responsible too. Not because white people are all racists. Not because we all commit heinous crimes and atrocities towards minorities, but because the majority of us choose to remain neutral in the war on hate.
In the words of South African social rights activist, Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” He offers an analogy to illustrate his point: “If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
This is something we all need to realize sooner rather than later. Remaining neutral is equivalent to supporting oppression. Instead of turning our backs and resigning to our fate to live in a violent, corrupt, and unjust world, we need to come together and fight the injustice and hate as one. Not as white people, not as black; not as American or European, wealthy or poor; but as human beings who must unite to save this world we all share.
It’s not too late. Let the killings of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamrippa, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, Lorne Ahrens, and the other victims of last week’s shootings are our turning point. Let’s turn our fear, helplessness, and uncertainty into our motivation for taking action against evil and hate.
This is not a war against law enforcement. This is not a war against black or white people. This is a war against injustice and racism; against hate and evil, and we are all soldiers. You are either against oppression or for it.
There is no neutral ground.
