My heart goes out to the people of Dallas, Texas, the police department that lost their officers, and the families that lost their fathers, brothers, sons, and friends. My heart goes out to the people who have lost loved ones to gun violence, and the people, black or white, that have lost family members to police brutality.
This week, communities in Louisiana and Minnesota lost loved ones to gun violence, orchestrated by out of control police officers. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were both killed within literal hours of each other. Both happened to be filmed. The deaths are inexcusable, and both happened to have subpar excuses by police departments. One detail that really stood out to me? When a spokesman for the police department said that both body cams, one for each police officer, just happened to fall off. That's it. They fell off. Honestly? I'm shocked. If GoPro's can stick to snowboarders, surfboarders, wild animals, and skydivers, then government body cameras should stay on police officers.
Regardless, these recent shootings aren't what the Black Lives Matter movement is about. The Black Lives Matter movement isn't a "f*ck the police" movement. It's a peaceful movement geared towards gaining equal rights and footing for all people when it comes to life, not just black lives. On that note, not all police officers are terrible people. In fact, it's quite the opposite, as most officers are decent, hardworking people that do the right thing to keep communities around the country safe.
It's with these sentiments that I send this message: as Jon Stewart once said, being pro-BLM and pro-police aren't mutually exclusive. You can be both of these things. To say that you can only be one or the other is a complete and blatant lie, and it makes you a part of the problem, whether you say it out of ignorance or not. The fact that a percentage of the population believes that the two terms are separate are helping to spread the problem.
The goal is not to win, for either side. The goal for each side should be to foster a sense of understanding and trust, not to win against either the "punk protesters" or the "pig cops". Please, take a minute to think on this. It shouldn't be lashing out against each other in violence. It should be about reforms and discourse, talks and focuses. Killing each other isn't going to help anything at all. If these killings give us anything, it's a reminder that each sect of radicals makes up a small part of each population. They don't represent mainstream ideals that many people share.
Again, my heart goes out to the victims involved in both situations. Rest easy, and know that we all mourn with you.
