Tensions are running high and thin all across the nation. We know this. We also know that we can't turn on the 11 o'clock news without seeing some sort of protest taking part. These protests aren't helping anything and are not saving anyone. Call me ignorant if you must. But I don't condone protesting, not just from one group, from any group. Yes, I know it's our constitutional right as citizens of the United States. Yes, I am aware that it brings a focus to an issue at hand, but that's the problem – protests call attention. I don't care if they are meant to be peaceful at first, or if they were intended to simply just be violent from the beginning. There are extremists in each and every group. Whether it be a protest in regards to Blue Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter, or anything else headlining the news. The bigger the crowd, the more likely that there will be a person, or a few that take things too far.

However, it's not just the illusion of crazies that makes me heated upon viewing protest news segments, it's the overall idea. They promote one way of thinking. This being the group leading the protest vs. those being protested against. Yes, you get your ideas and points across by yelling them into a megaphone or a microphone and rallying people up, but then what? You go home after the group gets broken up, or yet another tragedy occurs. Where does that get us? The answer is nowhere. We don't come to solutions by broadcasting only our way of thinking. We can't close an issue if it can be reviewed and opened by the oppressors. We have to be able to talk, and to listen. Trying to shove a person's belief's down their throats doesn't help them understand and accept it; they may blindly accept it, but when it gets questioned by another, the don't have any answers. The key component in problem solving is communication, and you can't communicate with only your followers and trustees.

In my eyes, protests are nearly blame games – and this entire country needs to stop blaming one another, and begin listening to one another.