Trust is a very fragile thing. It can just as easily be given as it can be taken away. To be able to get trust, you must first earn trust. Trust can be compared to our current bank accounts; our withdrawals depend heavily on our own personal deposits. If your actions do not positively impact your bank account, it is going to be hard to make a withdrawal. It goes the same way with interactions. If your actions do not appear to be trustworthy, then it is going to be hard to ever receive the trust of others.
This year, I have heard a lot about trust. People talk daily about not trusting this person or not trusting that person. It has came to my attention that there is a large amount of mistrust going on in today’s society. We constantly hear of violence on the news and we automatically recall the ‘ifs’ of the situation. What if that was me? What if I was there? This is a conditioned response that is teaching us to be dubious of our surroundings. We instantly want an explanation for such an incident, but most of the time, end up short. Without a purpose, the media or, other third parties, tend to create a fictional theory as to why this has happened. More so than not, people adopt this reasoning as the direct cause of the situation.
We can find this cause being along the guidelines of ethnicity, culture, gender, age, social class, or mental status. As a group, we are claiming a crime to have happened due to one or many of these categories. In my opinion, this is a fault of society. By claiming the offender was among these categories, we are creating an acute-moral-panic based on their description. We are doing ourselves and injustice by taking away a connection that could be vital to society. We are placing the harm unto ourselves.
For example, after 9/11, people were frantic. Hate crimes were taken out on anybody who slightly fit the description of a terrorist. Innocent people, who were affected just the same as other Americans, were being punished due to their external appearance. This devastating time in history broke the trust of several Americans. Even today, we have trust issues due to mass crimes around the world. The trust is always based off of a personal description. We aren’t talking about racism; we are talking about grouping.Grouping can be any person that falls into a direct factor of fear; this fear usually is branched outside of the cultural norms. As days progress and people timidly wait for the next major headline in news, these select people will always be watched. These people are the ones that we would be accused of crime before anybody else. Although our own opinions are more than likely misconceptions, it is still a human response to crime. We are always on our toes. Society will always second guess their trust; never giving out more than what they ask for, and never accepting more than what they want. It is just a factor of the people. Like razor blades in apples, people will never completely overcome the fear that was previously established. Sometimes we are the ones to place our own razor blades into the apples. Bad things happen all the time; it is up to us to not create the violence by personal bias. Give trust to receive trust.
