Black and White - No, not the cookie

It's truly unfortunate, (look it up if you need to I chose that word as apposed to the media's term, tragic), that the death of a young man by a older man has happened, again. I purposely left out the obvious descriptions, of those involved, with the hope's that years down the road we won't remember the obvious but rather that what will be remembered is what most folks do not consider now a days. Hey, I am an optimist. Tragedies are exactly that "a lamented, dreadful or fatal event..." Was this event more tragic than the other estimated 146,357 deaths that occurred on that same day? Is every death tragic?

I am angered by the number of facts that were left out of the trial. Both the boy and the man had much more information to be shared about their pasts but were not allowed in court for various "legal" reasons.

I am angered by the number of facts that were left out of the media coverage. Not sure who made that call but it seemed that most of the major networks and news agencies failed to site all the facts. Perhaps they were happy with just those that made the event "tragic".

I am angered that the man didn't listen to the police instructions to stay in his car and that the boy was stereo typed by the man. But I am also angered because the boy attacked the man and was on top of him and beating him with mixed martial arts style blows to his head.

Stereotypes exist because they stem from folks who choose to broad stroke only a small portion of the observed, (sometimes even exaggerated or made up), layers of the "selected" group of people. When "judging someone", (I hate that by they way and YES that is another blog), few of those folks take time to consider all of the facts; the circumstances, their past history, their dreams, their talents, their passions, their potential, the missed opportunities, the prejudice, the hate, the pain, the anger. Those who judge are too busy wrapping themselves up in that self-fulfilling blanket of security.

The media no longer reports the news. They determine what is news and then report it in the way they want it to be seen. I think CNN and FOX are great examples of how the same story can be reported so completely different by two different NEWS agencies. What about truth in journalism? Yeah well that has kinda taken on a different meaning. This my friends is what I call greed. But I digress.

One story does not make a crisis. Some of my more extremely unsettling concerns (or crises if you prefer) are that adults still smoke themselves to death, children are still abused to death, elderly are still neglected to death. All of these "people" can be any color or ethnicity you want to assign them. After all that doesn't really matter in the long run. True, there are some ethnicities that have higher rates of certain causes of deaths per capita for various reasons. Adults, children and the elderly are all humans and deserve the respect that all humans should be given.

As I have always said, " I believe every emotion stems from either love or fear." Did this unfortunate death of the boy stem from love or fear? Perhaps you could ponder that when you care to make some time for it. You can also read my other blog on that very statement. So the question remains: It is really simple don't you think, when you really think hard and seriously. Come on, give me any good reason why this story has been given too much press when there are so many other stories that need to be told?