The Dallas shooting shows those who are divorced from radicalized religion and terrorism how they can become who they are. These groups decided to arm themselves due to real or perceived threats to them or their perceived ways of life and are trying to fight a war that will bring attention to their cause.  I’m not trying to say one is more or correct than the other, but that these are the seeds that plants such discord.  This is a turning point for our country, for there will be those who will back the snipers and their point and view and there will be those who oppose them.  What happens is that we become more divided as a nation as we live in constant distrust of others.  There will be retaliation on each side and then you become the country you never thought you would be.

Where is the accountability? Who is accountable for years of oppression?  Who is accountable for the rage?  You can definitely disagree with me, but this is what I believe can help the trauma of the past.  We need a better understanding of our own history.  Some learning institutions do better than others, but what they all fail at is to ask the students how they feel about it.  It’s okay for minorities to be outraged and whites to feel disgusted, but it’s also important to remember that that is the past and we are not those people.  If we all understood our history better, we may understand our present predicament.  I also think the media needs to stop showing pictures of those who commit crimes and be more accountable in what they are reporting.  If the only time you see a Black man in your life is when you see images of them committing crimes on the news, your perception of them may become biased.  If you only see White cops murdering people, your perception may become biased.  Lastly, we need to make the decision to invest in more extensive training of those who police us and enforce clear consequences of their actions.

The fact of the matter is we need each other. We need police officers.  We need teachers.  We need Whites, Blacks, Asians, Latinos, and more.  We just need to know we can do better than this where a person feels they  must kill others in order to be heard.  There is injustice that needs to be acknowledged and there is also accountability that needs to be dealt out.  No matter who you oppose in this country, know that the person on the other side also wants what is best for the country.  They may have different notions of going about it than you, but if we can just agree to that one idea, we can come together.