So I’m sitting here at 10:30 on a Saturday night going hard on some olive tapenade hummus, and I am trying and failing to write an article. Now, this is only my third week writing for the Odyssey. In my application I was teeming with ideas and headlines. I even made a list on my phone to go to when I get stuck, and yet here I am, unable to write about anything coherently because my brain cannot stop trying to process the events that have occurred this week in America. I don’t enjoy politics and current events were never my thing in social studies class, so I swore to myself that I would not write an article surrounded by such strong controversy. But then I came to the conclusion that I was given this opportunity for a reason and I might as well use it. I’ve listened to quite a few different opinions and perspectives on these issues, and now I’m ready to cast mine.

If you’ve been living under a rock or have been sleeping for seven days straight, a lot has happened in America. It began with two separate cases of two men, (who happened to be black), being fatally shot by police officers, (who happened to be white), although there is video evidence that there was no need for gunfire in the first place. I say “began” with a fistful of salt because this is surely not the first incident of its nature. This shooting sparked a nationwide uproar and the Black Lives Matter campaign is at large with protests against injustice and police brutality rising across the country. A few days later a black man opened fire in Dallas, Texas, killing five officers and injuring several others, making it the deadliest shooting for law enforcement since the attacks on 9/11. This sent the Blue Lives Matter campaign into motion, in which people showed their support for the lives of law enforcement officers.

Now, I am close to the police force and the departments that keep our communities safe. I fully support all that they do and all that they risk daily to protect us. I have never come across an officer who was rude, biased, violent or unnecessary. However, I am a white female and statistically we don’t experience these types of situations so I cannot cast my two cents in. We are more the swim-star-from-Stanford-rapes-us-behind-a-dumpster-and-gets-away-with-it type case, but that’s another fight for another day. The thing is, I can’t sympathize with the black community because I myself am not black, right? But are we not all still human beings? Do we not breathe the same air and bleed the same blood? We may not have the same skin color or the same ancestors, but we are still brothers and sisters in God’s eyes, and if you aren’t religious at least remember that we are all on this earth together trying to make lives for ourselves and our families. No one begs to be discriminated against or persecuted because of their skin or where they come from. No one begs to be afraid to leave their house in their own community. No one begs to be denied their rights or treated like anything less than a human being, so why are they being granted the wish they never wished for? I don’t have an answer to that because I don’t understand the hate that some people harbor in their hearts for others who are different than they are, but I do understand that it has to stop.

I can sit here and try to pinpoint exactly my stance on these problems, but it all brings me down to one question: when are we going to start treating each other as people and not just bags of bones? Whether I’m gay, straight, trans, bi, black, white, red, yellow, purple, short, tall, male or female, am I not a person? Equality shouldn’t have to be fought for, it should be automatic, and in a perfect world it would be. However, we don’t live in a perfect world. I fully believe that everything happens for a reason, and these tragic events have served to bring light to just a few of the underlying problems in our country today. When I say “All Lives Matter,” I’m not stepping on the toes of any other movement. I’m simply saying it because I don’t understand why I have to. I don’t understand how this isn’t an obvious point already. I do understand that what is happening today will go down in the history books, and it’s up to us to write the outcome. If we can set aside whatever baggage we have ready to throw at the other and come together to make a difference, then the deaths of these men and the men and women before them will not be in vain.

We all have opinions and often very strong ones, but our opinions are merely perspectives on the truth of the matter. If a hundred people photograph a tree from a hundred different angles they will have a hundred different photos, but the tree is still a tree. If a hundred different people cast a hundred different thoughts on the problems of America we will have a hundred different perspectives, but the problems will still be problems. I can’t change the world with my article, the photographer can't change the tree with his camera, and the people of America can't make a change with just a conversation, it takes action. It takes initiative. It takes admitting that something needs to be done and moving forward, not discussing our hundreds of thousands of different opinions on the issue, because the issue will still be an issue unless we do something about it. It has to start somewhere, so let’s start with ourselves.