In recent months, American society has been bombarded with reports about race relations, police brutality, and what it means to be a Black person in this country. Much blame has been thrown around-President Obama, the NAACP, Liberals, White People, Slavery, The Police, Systematic and Institutionalized Racism, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Colin Kapernick, Fox News, and most notoriously, the Black Lives Matter movement.

As a young Black woman who tries to be as socially and politically conscious as possible, I have to take a step back in my activism and pose the question: “But HOW are we fixing the problem?”

I am unapologetically Black in everything that I do, but in the midst of my protesting, in the midst of my posting, tweeting, and sharing articles of blatant racism, in the midst of trying to educate my non-Black friends on what it’s like to be me, I didn’t think about the most important person in my life that’s stuck directly in the middle of all this mess:

My big brother Jeff.

My brother is an African-American man, and a cop. It wasn’t until he sent me a text the other day expressing his frustrations about how police are being perceived in the media that I actually stopped and realized just how hard it is being on the other side. I never stopped to think that some weirdo out there who equates all cops as being bad could decide to shoot him. The idea that this is where we are in our society scares me to death.

What’s even scarier is that I have to tell my brother to stay safe when he’s out in California patrolling the streets. I never thought you could be dually afraid for someone’s life and safety, but I am. I fear that my brother will be killed because he is Black and I fear that he will be killed becausehe is a policeman. While I may be fearful, I can’t begin to imagine how he must feel. He has a family to think about, a fiancé and two adorable little girls, plus me, our parents, our two older brothers, our sister, our nieces, and nephews plus the rest of our family and friends. I never quite understood why my mother was so skeptical about him becoming a cop. To me it made sense; he was in the military for almost 10 years, worked for border patrol, he’s in school getting a degree in Criminal Justice, so, of course, he would become a cop. Today, I understand and share in my mother’s fear 1,000 percent.

I write this article as not only a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement but as a person with a loved one on the other side of this great divide. My only request is that we as a country stop and really ask ourselves, “What the hell are we doing?”

We as activists and regular citizens love to discuss the Blue Wall of silence and other things we’ve read or heard about police officers, but we never stop much and talk about the good cops who are out here policing our streets. I know it’s not something we wanna hear but, there are good cops out there, and my brother is one of them. The media will only show you what they want you to see, and right now we’re in the middle of the most heated and talked about election in American History.

This election season has been based on fear and hate, and what better way to promote that fear and hate by showing both police and BLM protesters in a negative light? The media’s plan has worked; everyone’s afraid-Black people, Hispanic people, the police. But what good is being afraid doing us? What good are we doing by labeling ALL BLM protesters as x,y,z? What good are we doing by labeling ALL cops as x, y, z? What progress are we making by screaming and yelling about who’s right and whose wrong?

The answer? None.

“Why is equality so assiduously avoided? Why does White America delude itself and how does it rationalize the evil it retains? The majority of White Americans consider themselves to be sincerely committed to the Negro. They believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately, this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity”-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“I contend that the cry of “Black Power” is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of White power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality to the Negro. I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro has worsened over the last few years. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent, rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that the riot is the language of the unheard. And what has America failed to hear? It has failed to hear that large segments of White society are more concerned with tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity”-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that…I have decided to stick to love…hate is too great a burden to bear.”-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Every day I’m standing outside trying to sing my way in ‘We are hungry please let us in, we are hungry, please let us in’. After a week that’s gonna turn into ‘we hungry we need some food, we hungry we need some food’. After two, three weeks it’s like ‘gimmie all the food or I’m breaking down the door’. After a year you’re just like ‘I’m pickin the lock comin through the door blastin’. We’re tired of asking; we tried asking with the Panthers, we tried asking with them [Civil Rights Movement]. Most of them are dead or in jail. So what do you think we’re gonna do?”-Tupac Shakur.