"The enemy is fear. We think it's hate; But, it is fear" - Gandhi
1992...... Rodney King. I was 13 years old and remember crying watching the footage of Rodney King being brutally beaten by police, sick to my stomach. For those who don't know or don't remember, Rodney King was a paroled felon, he was driving, he was under the influence and he led police on a high-speed chase in Los Angeles. He then "surrendered", but allegedly remained uncooperative and resisted arrest. What followed that was a 90 second disturbing video of 4 policemen brutally attacking, kicking and beating this man with their batons. It was, at the time, the most graphic and disturbing thing I had ever seen. When the court decided to release the 4 officers without charges the city went crazy....the people protested, and so began the LA Riots, 3 days of violence, death and destruction. I can remember the shock, and honestly I still cry when I read about it.
If you would have told me then, that 24 years from now my children would see graphic, disturbing video on a weekly (if not more) basis, I wouldn't have believed you.....it's still hard to believe and it sickens me that something that was once so outrageous, has become the "norm".
We, as a society, are so desensitized to violence that it is truly disturbing. Whether it is due to movies, tv, live video, video games, it is still disturbing; it is a sad time to be part of this "human" race.
"They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces." - Richard Wright
What in the world has happened in Twenty-Four years time that our citizens now behave like, or worse than, those of a third-world country. That we have terrorist living with us, so filled with hate that they are shooting up schools, office buildings, movie theaters, night clubs and now peaceful rally's?
Then the saddest part is, instead of coming together and looking for a solution to this very disturbing and terrifying problem, hate begets more hate and ignorance ensues all around us. People are divided by beliefs, race, gender, religion. Everyone is placing blame and spewing hate, no one is reflecting on themselves, no one is admitting to any wrong doing. We can't ALL be the victims, we ARE NOT all the victims.
"Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate." - Rick Warren
My Social media page has been filled with hate lately. Someone expresses an opinion 20 people disagree and an argument gets opened up in their comment section. After a while, the people are out of facts and they just begin personally insulting the "commenters", because I guess that's what we do. We don't like what someone says, we resort to name calling. Instead of stepping back and realizing that maybe there are 50 sides to the same story, maybe we can try to see someone else's point of view, we write them off......it's much easier. In this cyber world, where we don't have to say anything to someone's face we can just sit back and type anything we want, regardless of how it makes someone feel. We can bully and name call and say things we would NEVER say to someone sitting across from us, we have no manners and no regard for other people's feelings.....NONE.
So, what should we do? STOP....just STOP. We need to reach out, we need to band together despite our differences, we are all DIFFERENT, we need to work together to STOP this cycle of violence. It's getting worse. It will keep getting worse, unless we make some drastic changes and that scares me.
What will the next 20 years be like? We have regressed this much in the compassion department in the last 20 years, what will it be like in 20 more? That questions disturbs me, it makes me afraid.....what will my children's world be like, or their children.....and what does fear do? It causes hate and then more violence.
The answer.....LOVE, care about your fellow humans NO MATTER their personal lifestyles or beliefs. RESPECT all people, NO MATTER their profession or skin color. TRUST that if we work together, if we Love and Respect one another, we can fix this, we are human, we do have compassion and FEAR can not win, if we don't let it. Stop being assholes.
"This world of ours...must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a confederation of mutual trust and respect." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
