One of my favorite songs by the Black Eyed Peas is “Where Is The Love?” This song is powerful in what it represents; it speaks of anti-hate and how corrupted our society is when it comes to love. One quote that is repeated throughout the song that speaks to our current day society is:
“People killin’, people dyin.’
Children hurt and you hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preach? Or would you turn the other cheek?”
When you go to school your parents, if they are like mine, tell you to treat people the way you would want to be treated. At school, they tell you to treat people with kindness, because you don’t know their back stories, and if you go to any form of a Christian based church, they tell you to “love your neighbor.”
So let me ask you this; if people are preaching about loving one another and yet they don’t follow their own advice, then where is the love? All around people are being discriminated against because of their personal beliefs, sexuality, gender preference, ethnicity, or their economic status. Our society is so consumed with the idea that we, as individuals, need to be a specific way: we need to be the same. Whether that is being thin to be beautiful, or to be masculine so other men don’t see you as weak.
Right now, there is a saying being circulated called #AllLivesMatter. Millions of people are on board with this rally because of the violence that is taking place in the United States. They see only what the media shows them, that a white cop shot a black man at a gas station, that man was Alton Sterling. The black community then started the beginning of “lives matter” with #BlackLivesMatter because of the recent media of cops shooting “only” blacks. They use this saying because they have the right to this saying, their lives do matter. When a group feels that they are being oppressed they are allowed, in the United States, to express their feelings. Protests started to emerge on the streets by the black community, and then the Dallas shooting occurred.
The recent sympathizers of the Baton Rouge incident protested in Dallas, while more radical sympathizers took the lives of five cops trying to get people off the street. These cops were trying to save the lives of ALL people on that street. Unfortunately, this set a bad stigma on blacks to certain people in the US, because blacks were shooting peace officers. Then whites, become racist because of their reactions to what the media shows them. Thinking whites are the only racists, is a racist thought itself; Black lives do matter, White lives do matter, Hispanic lives do matter, Asian lives do matter, Native American lives do matter, all lives matter.
With this new saying that “all lives matter” and people blasting it to infinity, means that if you believe that all lives matter, show it. It is ironic how people can say that all lives matter except a certain group's. No. If you are going around saying that all lives matter, but one in particular, then you are not practicing what you are preaching.
This takes us to another topic of the all lives matter. We were raised in a society where old school views say we can’t have certain characteristics because they are taboo and not to like people who do have different characteristics. This generation is one of the most exploratory generations of its time; people are coming out with their sexualities, becoming the gender they seek, and inventing themselves as something that the older generation has not seen. We are an emerging generation in an old school thinking routine. We want to be different but we criticize those who are different. We bash them and ban them from being what they want to be. If a person born a male wants to practice feminine characteristics and believes they are female, let her. If a person born a female prefers to be a man, let him. If a person wants to practice a religion that is not within the social norms, it is not your place to tell them they are evil because of that. People are allowed to treat people indecent, due to the lack of acceptance in our society. Whether it is because of a certain race, the way they look, or their religion, even though people are proclaiming that all lives matter.
I propose that we follow through with the saying #AllLivesMatter, and not just some lives matter. We should judge each individual by their character, and not by their characteristics. We should not let one person’s actions affect the way we see an entire group of people. We should be the change we want to see in the world. After all, we are all human and all lives matter.
