Guys, we need to have a serious conversation about this current atrocity.
After the horrific events that occurred on Wednesday, I sat down and posted an eloquent and well thought out response. I was able to mourn while also forcing us to confront the real reasons behind it. By sharing a personal anecdote, I connected myself to the tragedy in order to show that we aren’t so far removed from what we see on the news. We all live in the same world and we need to take ownership of that fact.
As it stands, it currently only has six likes. Six. This is unacceptable.
Dakota Baker posted a meme of an inspirational JFK quote and it has over 47 likes. Sandra Gutierrez simply posted “When will this country finally say ‘Enough is enough?’” And she’s getting comments like “^^^THIS!” and “Amen” and “Can’t agree more!” Four people even clicked “Share.” Are you serious? There’s no substance to that post. What is there even to share?
I mean, the picture I posted on Father’s Day of my dad in his army uniform got upwards of 29 likes and seven comments. Yet something that I put real work into only garners six.
Now, I need to make one thing clear: This is not about me. This is not about my ego. It’s about the thoughts and opinions expressed in my post. If you’re not hitting “Like,” it means you are either overlooking or willfully ignoring some honest and insightful truths about this country. Apart from myself and five other people, nobody is recognizing them.
I hoped to inspire a dialogue across my social network. Morgan Johnston’s post, linking to a Breitbart article, has incited partisan hostilities between the Left and Right wingers that I went to high school with. But if there is going to be an 80 comment-long war with multiple Hitler references being thrown back and forth, it should be taking place under my post and using my valid ideas as the jumping off point.
This is one of those moments in history where the world ceases to make sense. It’s hard to even process. Tim Walters writes “Will this place ever not be so effed up?” and somehow that gets 12 likes. “Effed.” The guy doesn’t even have the conviction to say “fucked” (I did not resort to invoking profanity, by the way). Yep. Common sense only gets you six likes. So, no. This place is still very much effed up.
I know that asking for likes could be seen as self-serving, so I guess that what I should ask of you is to not lose sight of what really matters. This unthinkable tragedy has given us the opportunity to sit down and decide what kind of people we want to be. We need to recognize good ideas when we see them, even if they run counter to what we think. And then we need to highlight and promote those brilliant ideas. Maybe even share them with others.
And that way, we can prevent a situation like this from ever happening again.
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