Hello Readers,

This week’s entry is a challenging one to write. While I wanted to write about the good news of surviving this 2020 Spring semester during an epic pandemic or to celebrate the beauty of friendship, because I have some of the most amazing friends near and far, it seems that the chaotic climate outside my window would not have me be so lighthearted. 

May came with good weather, good grades, and hope for an ending to the stay-at-home orders due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Sadly, it has also brought national turmoil because of the deaths of 3 black lives at the hands of white counterparts. There is mayhem in the streets of every state in the United States as the cause for equality for the black community has been pushed past the brink. With the death of George Floyd particularly, the Black Lives Matter movement has risen up and protested everywhere they can be heard. On the streets leading to the White House, the Mayor of D.C. allowed “BLACK LIVES MATTER” to be painted, largely covering much of the pavement. Riots have also ensued, with looting, fires, and clashes with the local police becoming the headlines of the news everyday for the past two weeks. 

Here’s the tough position I hold on this, I stand for justice and agree that Black lives do matter. They have suffered an unjust amount of cruelty from the authorities politically and otherwise. However, I stand with the need of police officers and their purpose. Do some have a reckless way of following protocol or dealing with real life confrontation with a person of color? Yes. I believe there are some in which a person is not a person more than he is the color of his skin. I don’t support the pattern of behavior that takes lives recklessly. Yet…yet I have sat and have heard from those officers that put their lives on the line every single day without hesitations. They at the end of the day, also want to go home to their loved ones. The volume of issues police departments deal with on any given day is something we civilians cannot phantom. It is much harder to find innocence on either side and much easier to find blame, and yet people are fed up with the one-sidedness of it all in many places. While we don’t realize the work and effort that goes into protecting our communities, it also haunts us to see the deaths of so many of our own when in our minds and reality, we question, could it have been handled differently- saving the life lost?

Police Officers take an oath to serve and protect the charge given them. But the riff between the charge of people and the police is so deteriorated, that neither side respects the other. No one is no longer listening. Are we really surprised that the brutality between both sides continues to exist? Sufficient action and change have failed to be accounted for or implemented. For the last four years alone, I have seen the most protests around the nation and around the world like I’ve never seen in my whole life. We can only hope for change and middle ground meets. We must because as a parent I can only imagine the fear and pain of losing a child needlessly. I show my tan Latino son he is valuable inside and out and I also show him to regard police officers as the good guys.  

My heart goes out to all of those who have lived or are living in the injustice of our broken system on both sides of this civil war. We must learn to live and love one another- especially those with opposing views. They are the ones that need the most understanding, clarity, and example of it really is to live in harmony. We must also accept the fact that even as those who put on a badge mean to do the best they can to keep law and order, that the system is corrupt and does not always govern the people justifiably. Once both sides can sit at a table and accept that the lack of respect and aggressiveness in treatment toward one kind of people in comparison to others, is really what is tearing everyone apart, only then can this nation take a step toward resolution. 

Be well. Be safe.