Advocating for the Black Lives Matter movement does not and should not make anyone an anti-cop. Supporting the police does not and should not also make anyone an anti-black lives matter. Let’s put it simply, I do not love you does not mean that I hate you. I am not your friend does not mean that I am your enemy. Things are rarely either or. They are always much more complex and convoluted. For too long, binary thinking has led us to oversimplification; thus leading us to dehumanize anyone who is opposed to our side.
This past weekend again, we saw thousands of people walking in the street of St. Louis following the acquittal of Jason Stockley. Most of these people protested against system of injustice that seems to forget that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” as previously stated by Martin Luther King. America is at an important crossroad that requires a sense of responsibility, understanding and accountability.
In the midst of the escalating culture of extremism and indifference toward one another, it is worth acknowledging that it is individual responsibility that gives birth to collective responsibility. At the same time, it is only collective responsibility that gives meaning to individual responsibility. We are forever condemned to live with and by one another. The character of our society will be judged by our capacity to become one out of many (E pluribus Unum).
These protests remind us the necessity to empathize and to build bridges of hope and understanding among people of different classes, ethnicity, affiliations and backgrounds. Our indifference and lack of respect for one another have done justice to no-one and only reopened old wounds. We can no longer afford to remain blinded by our ideological views and oblivious to the founding principles of democracy: the presumption of innocence and the willingness to compromise. America is and still remains a place where all things are still possible and we should never lose sight of this fact.
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