Our country is broken, plain and simple.
If you believe that there is not a racism in the year 2016, I honestly don't know what is wrong with you. Either you refuse to sit down and look at our problems or you are a racist yourself.
This week, within 24 hours, two Black men were killed more than 1,000 miles apart from each other, but they were murdered by the very people who are supposed to protect us. Then, on Thursday night, five police officers in the city of Dallas were gunned down while working a protest that was a response for the killings earlier in the week. Last month, 50 members of the LGBTQ+ community were slaughtered in Orlando for just being themselves.
With the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a growing sentiment of people saying that All Lives Matter, but after these events in the past months, it has become very clear that All Lives do not Matter.
As a country, in one week, we have proven that they do not matter.
They just don't, and if you want to think otherwise, then I bring up the horrific events at Sandy Hook to show you why I'm right. 20 children were murdered by a person who was able to slip through the cracks of our incredibly weak gun laws, and after the initial outrage, we swept it under the rug until another mass shooting.
We've done the same thing when it comes to police brutality. Whether it is Oscar Grant, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, or Philando Castile, which was the case this week. In light of recent events, it has become very clear to me that all lives do not matter.
As a young black man in America, I have a constant fear of being made into a hashtag for everyone to post all on their Social Media after I have been killed by someone. I also live in constant fear for my roommate, who is also black, that he will meet the same end of those who have been murdered by those who are supposed to protect us.
I fear for my friends and family members who are members of police forces across the country. I fear for their lives because of instances like those in Dallas of people letting anger getting to them and killing members of the police force.
Now, for the group of people who will inevitably say "Well, we don't know all the facts about the Sterling and Castile shooting, we don't know what he did to deserve this." If you are saying this, please listen for two seconds.
We have multiple video angles of the police pinning Alton Sterling down and murdering him, firing two shots, pausing, and then firing two more shots.
The cop murdered him.
The worst part about this whole incident is that the officers that were involved were put on paid leave, meaning that they pretty much received a slap on the wrist for murdering someone.
I shouldn't have to live in a society where I have to tell my kids that they need to freeze in order to make it home alive. I don't want my future son to get murdered during a routine traffic stop.
Listen, I love the police, I respect the work that they do and admire them as a whole, but it is so infuriating to see the blind support of someone who murdered another person and saying that we don't have all the facts when we clearly do.
Also, if you are in the group of people who are glad that the shootings in Dallas happened, I also need you to stop.
Thursday night, five lives were taken away from people who were attempting to control something that has been known to get out of hand very quickly. Five fathers were taken away from their children, five husbands were taken away from their spouses, and five sons were taken away from parents.
Doesn't that make you sad?
I guess to finish this off, while all lives should matter, we, as a country, have shown that they do not now and they will not matter until we sit down and take a look at our laws and take away those that pose a disadvantage to the disenfranchised as well as respecting and validating our nation's police force. Until then, we are going to be in the same rut that we are currently in.
As a country, we are going to keep killing each other until we do something. We need to stop sharing photos and videos to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that say things like #BlackLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter, and #AllLivesMatter and get out and start loving each other. To quote the late and great Martin Luther King Jr.: "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."
