By Neil Johnson
We’re in an age where one fact, one partial truth, lie or story can spread across the country within minutes. Even in our not so distant past news wouldn’t come out until 6 p.m. or the next day in the paper. In one sense this connects people in real time, we feel the event when it happens, but we rarely know facts and the whole story. We have to be careful; we have to protect our American values of truth and justice. We are wired together across the nation for good and bad. This instantaneous feedback is often the fuel for mob justice and fear. It sows the seeds of fear and mistrust.
Sometimes we need to wait and find the facts. We need to question where our information is coming from. Clearly a 50-word comment or 30-second video rarely show the whole story. We take a video that shows a partial event and think this holds the truth. These are the seeds of fear and mistrust that send us down the road to stereotyping.
What is happening to our country? On July 7, 2016, sitting at my desk, seeing the news of what is going on in Texas, I cried. We are Americans. Are we now Americans, fearful of each other, mistrusting of each other, disrespecting of each other? Who is sowing these seeds of fear and mistrust?
Van Jones, produced a video and while I seldom agree with him, he made a very good point, African Americans and the police are feeling the same pain. They are feeling the same fear. They are feeling the same mistrust. These seeds of fear and mistrust have been planted. They must not be watered; we must not put them in fertile soil and plenty of sun where they grow into a noxious weed, killing out all the good, the love and productivity of our American garden.
We the people need to raise up our good leaders, our good citizens. If we fertilize these seeds of fear and mistrust, we’ll have more noxious weeds, we’ll have leaders and celebrities that are noxious and tear down our great nation. I am sure there are plenty of great religious leaders within our inner cities, those leaders who are on the ground helping and coaching our inner cities to a better more prosperous community. Have you seen them on TV? Have you heard about them?
While at Thunder Road that same day, talking with my brother, he was concerned about his friends and their sons. He was genuinely concerned that his American friends of African descent were going to be shot by the police. Can you imagine that fear? Can you imagine the fear of coming up to a car and not knowing if the person is going to be violent or attempt to kill you? You see they are both thinking the same thing, when actually for the millions of interactions between police and African Americans, neither is ever the case. Neither is often thinking, I’m going to kill this person, but the fear is now planted on both sides.
Yet these seeds of fear and mistrust are being pampered and encouraged to grow. These very few seeds are taken and reported to be the way the entire community thinks, we are quickly on the road to stereotyping. The bad seed if allowed to grow becomes a noxious weed, then a stereotype, then racist on both sides. Progressions like this got us into a world conflict, propaganda, leading to stereotyping, leading to racism, which was taken to the extreme, with the attempt of extermination of an entire race.
The facts, police officers have unjustly shot African Americans. True. African Americans have killed cops who were performing their duties. True. This is absolutely true and tragic. How many actual times per year? Please know this answer. These events do not portray the entire story or even an accurate picture. These events do not define our African American communities nor our police departments; they are only the actions of a very, few. The actions of a very few do not portray our great communities with any basis for reality. These are evil seeds of fear and mistrust.
Even with the recent tragic, massive, unheard of events, the events still do not accurately portray two of the finest American groups. These portrayals do such a disservice to African Americans and our officers in uniform.
So I ask my fellow Americans, are we going to let the seeds of mistrust, fear and hatred be sown by a handful of people? Are we going to let our view of African Americans be swayed by a handful of hoods that perpetrate some heinous crime? Are we going to judge and dismantle our entire police system because of the actions of three or six policemen? Are we going to let social media, tabloid news and mob justice ruin our great country?
Or, are we Americans coming together with our profound love for our fellow countryman? Are we going to come together as Americans, promoting our ideals that justice is blind, blind to color, blind to wealth and influence? Are tweets and 30-second videos replacing our entire legal system? Are we going to let a dozen people, even a thousand people plant the seeds of fear and mistrust ruining the wonderful garden of 330 million we call America? For the very, very few heinous crimes that are committed in our great nation; shall we allow these events to define our communities?
We are Americans; we are all brothers and sisters, we need to come together in love and trust. We can build and better this great nation through love and trust, the seeds of fear and mistrust will tear down this great nation. We must bring to justice to those people who have committed crimes. We need to respect each other, we are all created equal, we all have the same worth; it is the basis and foundation for healing and love. We must forgive each other our transgressions; we must come together as a country based upon truths, the greatest truth and law being love.
Johnson lives in Waitsfield.
