By Michelle Seiler-Tucker, Special for USDR
Why can’t people understand that this is not just about Freddie Gray? It’s something much bigger that is poisoning this country that has to be addressed. Read the blogs of locals who live in Baltimore, and don’t believe what you hear in the national news. It’s all about sensationalism and playing upon people’s emotions. That’s what makes money—drama, death, and chaos! The media cannot help themselves because the media is ultimately a business. If the media were a force for good, it would be focusing on how to correct the problem and prevent it, or heal it from ever resurfacing like an open wound that festers. The pattern of repeating circumstances is obvious, and yes it is obvious that black lives matter too!
What isn’t, is that it’s not clear who threw something first, just like it is not clear what happened to Freddie Grey in transport, but what is certain is that there are bottled up aggressions of the uneducated & the underprivileged; where drunken racial slurs yelled by insensitive or blindly ignorant white bar patrons generate outward aggressive actions that have only been a disservice to this nation’s well being. There is a stereotype that blacks are constantly bastardized and degraded by this system of racial injustice and it becomes the social norm of their everyday lives where it is just an accepted part their life. The underprivileged feel like they are the victims. Victim mentalities are foolish and reactive lifestyles.
This is where—not just blacks, but all humans are at risk of falling short in their potential, because each and every single one of us is the CREATOR of our own lives. Race does not matter. Life is unfair in many spectrums, and it is how we react to the various trials, tribulations, circumstance and situations of our lives that create who we ultimately are to become as individuals. Likewise, the shadows of fear that linger amongst those who wear uniforms is mirrored in their actions. They fear they’ll never live up to the allegiance they’ve sworn upon so they will do anything to prove that they’re devoted to the hand over their heart. Sometimes the pressure is too unbearable and actions turn sour quickly.
In part, it also seems like it was a failure of security, where business owners didn’t stop customers from jeering at the protesters, nor did they stop serving them alcohol. The reality is that there is an institution upholding power that is fueled and funded by the media, which turns a blind eye and distorts reality. It creates it’s own version of reality that proves itself right. It perpetuates ignorance, racism and stereotypes to further it’s own political agenda for the mass media. It paints over situations with one color and blinds you with fear and hatred. There’s a war between media and reality. There’s a war between our police state and citizens. There’s a war of racial injustice and police brutality. There’s a war between poverty and privilege.
You take away education or you distort and bend facts, then you take away the quality of life. You warp and perpetuate deep rooted hatred and fear ingrained in a corrupt system; and then we still never hesitate to be baffled and perplexed by the actions that are merely outcries by the citizens of a community that fall victim to all of these things? Citizens of all races are not blind to the ignorance and hatred perpetuated by the system and so in a misdirected effort is rising against the forces that control and manipulate them. People are growing more aware and we are coming together as One. It will take time, but I think that despite the violence we are growing and developing, like I do with my businesses, to become a stronger, sturdier state of being. What I call sustainability, a community would call peace.
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