Every time you turn on the news, a different tragedy has happened. Another black man has been killed by a police officer. And another one. A gunman opened fire on a highway, targeting police officers. Five police officers lost their lives in an attack on Dallas police. Our country has erupted in protests. Innocent men and women across the nation are losing their friends, their families, even their own lives to hate.

While we should be coming together as our country is sliding farther and farther into dividedness, we are further isolating ourselves from one another.

We have isolated ourselves into groups of skin color and political ideologies. Our separate groups are spewing hate at one another, blaming each other for our problems. We justify what happens by saying it was deserved. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile deserved to be murdered because they were thugs resisting arrest. The fallen police officers deserved to be massacred because they were pigs that abused their power. The protesters deserve to be shot for marching the streets. It's appalling, and I'm sick of seeing how we are treating each other. This is not one nation under God. This is a war zone.

We are forgetting that we are all human beings. We don't simply just deserve to die. The victims were people with children, mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. Their children didn't wake up and think their parents weren't going to come home because they didn't deserve to live any longer. To them, they just lost the whole world. We are desensitizing ourselves to their names so we can justify their deaths. They are no longer mommies and daddies, sons and daughters. They are the thug that resisted arrest and the pig that was probably going to murder an innocent man, anyway.

We need to stand together. Instead of continuing to divide ourselves, we need to put our differences aside and support one another. In our time of desperate need, we should show some compassion, even if we don't understand the other side. We aren't just partitioned groups of people mourning the death of only those who are like us. We are an entire country that has lost countless victims to the tragedies looming around us. If we don't stand united as one country, we are going to crumble into our divided pieces. If that happens, God help us. God help us all.

May the fallen men and women rest in peace.

Alton Sterling

Philando Castile

Jennifer Rooney

Brent Thompson

Patrick Zamarripa

Michael Krol

Lorne Ahrens

Michael Smith