How do you feel about respect?  When did this basic courtesy seemingly disappear from the once great, United States of America?  It pains me to read news articles lately because the media has taken this lack of respect that is running rampant in our country and made it all about race.  I’m sorry, I know you think it’s all about you, but really it’s not, everyone is suffering from this latest epidemic and I think our shift in values away from families in the US has caused it.

I read an article about President Obama yesterday where he lamented that in the past he has been mistaken for “the help”.  Welcome to life of the common person Mr. President.  He assumed this error occurred simply because he is black.  I don’t know any of the details, but perhaps it was the way he was dressed or way he was behaving.  If I saw a well dressed black man acting and talking in a dignified manor there is no way I would assume he was “the help”.

I am a registered nurse with a bachelors degree.  I worked very hard for what I have.  No one gave me any money for college, I had to get student loans and work at multiple part time jobs to put myself through school.  I’ve been called everything from a waitress to a housekeeper by my patients and their families.  People are human, they make mistakes.

Yes, there are people out there that are sometimes very rudely presumptuous.  Ask any overweight girl who has been asked if she’s pregnant.  I have witnessed these mistakes many times, but believe me, it’s not always about race.  People have been judging people for years, it happens every day to all of us, whether we realize it or not.  Is it fair?  Rarely, but sometimes all people have to go with is their first instinct.

This is where the phrase, you never have a second chance to make a first impression came from.   So you must realize that when you go to a job interview, if you are actually motivated enough to go out and get a job, that your interviewer is not only looking at your resume, but at you.  How you dress, how you speak and how you interact with your interviewer all effects the outcome.

Do we get upset when people make false assumptions about us?  Of course we do.  When I was younger my dad decided he wanted to buy his first luxury car.  To him, buying a Cadillac would be the symbol to other people that he had finally made it.  Since my dad didn’t like being in debt he’d had to wait until he saved the money to buy the car.

We all drove excitedly to the dealership, in the clunker that my dad had been driving for years, ready to plunk down cash for the car my dad had been dreaming of for years.  We were quite dismayed when the salesmen took one look at my father and rather rudely told him  he “couldn’t afford” a Cadillac.  Then the salesman proceeded to take us to the lot where the more affordable cars were.  Fortunately, my dad was not about to be treated that way.  We left immediately and went to another dealership.   My dad ended up buying a Lincoln Continental and he has never liked Cadillacs since.

You may feel that you have the right to your individuality, which you most certainly have that right, but at what cost?  In general, I really don’t care what people think of me, but as a nurse I have to realize that I work with people of all age groups from all sorts of backgrounds that need to feel safe with me as their nurse.  I could have wild pink hair if I wanted to, but would that 93 year old woman that barely speaks any English feel safe with a person like that?

If you don’t care what people think, that’s just fine.  But if you project a certain image, don’t cry “foul” when people judge you in a certain way.  If you are standing on the street corner with your pants hanging down, your hoodie up and you’re flashing gang symbols, I’m going to assume you’re a “thug” it doesn’t matter if you are black, white or purple.  Your race has absolutely nothing to do with it.

The media has been taking this racial card and running with it for their own profit making all the progress we have made in recent years melt away.  I grew up in the 60’s so I know how black people were treated, and it makes me cringe to even think about it.  In recent years we have made so much progress.  There will always be people out there that are haters, there is really nothing that can be done to change that.  The public protests, the looting and the ridiculous protests by celebrities have only caused people who had no opinion at all, to now have a poor opinion of the black community.

To those celebrities out there that want their little bit of glory for acknowledging these tragedies, first educate yourself.  If you are protesting something you obviously know nothing about, you make yourself look like a moron.  Secondly, you can rant and bash all you want, but that is not going to help anyone.  If you want to change the world you have to do something about it.  If you really want to make a difference you need to help the people you are protesting for.  You make millions of dollars, use it to do something good.

Everyone is so outraged by these “racially motivated killings” but cops are killed every day and people just write it off saying they knew it was part of their job.  Well it shouldn’t be.  A cop shouldn’t have to be afraid that they might be shot during a routine traffic stop, but they are.

When a police officer approaches a suspect, his safety and the safety of innocent people all around him are at stake.  So with this in mind, he cannot assume that a person is unarmed.  In case you don’t realize this, people hide guns all sorts of places on their body, so while the media is screaming that Michael Brown of Ferguson was unarmed, the answer is yes, he was, but he was also aggressive and the officer had not even had the chance to pat him down.  Officer Wilson was on patrol alone, but Michael Brown was not.  Darren Wilson only knew that he was in a situation that he was losing control of.  He didn’t know if Michael Brown would pull out a gun or maybe his accomplice would.  He had to make a split second decision.

Then there is the case of Tamir Rice, another sad case.  Let’s think about this case as well.  After hundreds of people have been shot in school and workplace shootings by juveniles or adults who have just lost it, people all over the US are understandably freaking out about guns.  Just seeing one being waved around in a public place would be enough to make you wet your pants.  So worried citizens call the police because this twelve year old boy is flashing this gun around, pulling it out of his pants at a Recreation Center.  Is this gun real?  Nobody knows, but if it is, this could turn out to be another huge tragedy.

So the police show up and the kid was told to put his hands up, instead he pulls the gun (which looks incredibly real) out of his waistband.  This officer now is in a situation where he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.  If this gun is real and one innocent person gets shot by this kid, the cop will forever be condemned  for failing to protect the innocent.  If he shoots this kid and it’s a fake, yep, you guessed it.

Of course it’s horrible that it was a fake and the kid got killed, but why wouldn’t he put his hands up?  Twelve years old is definitely old enough to know better.  It can only be written off as a very stupid tragedy.  It’s stupid that this kid was flashing this toy gun in public and it’s stupid that he didn’t just drop it the minute he saw the cop.

As for the case in NYC where the man died after being in a chokehold, now that was a horrible tragedy as well.  I didn’t see the entire video, but to me that incident did seem like police brutality.  The man appeared to be surrendering, so I didn’t see any reason for the police to take him down to the ground like that.

As you can see these are three very different cases.  They all involve black men or boys, but are they really racially motivated?  Michael Brown was a criminal retreating from a crime scene, if he’d just surrendered, he’d be alive today.  Tamir Rice was inexplicably waving what everyone thought, was a deadly weapon.  When commanded to raise his hands, he reached for a gun.  Eric Garner in NYC was considered a nuisance by many, but from what I’ve seen he seemed harmless.  I do not believe he was resisting arrest and I believe this case could be considered police brutality.

Yet,  just like people of certain races, or religions or sexual orientations don’t want to be lumped into one category, we shouldn’t be lumping all the  police into one category either.  Most police officers care about the community they are protecting and they just want to make it through their shift so they can be home with their families.

Please have a little respect for all your fellow humans, don’t judge, don’t condemn and do your part to make this world a better place. Thank a teacher, a nurse, a police officer a firefighter, because they deserve your appreciation, not your criticism.

Guest blogger-Jean Marie Stanberry

Author of “Laying Low in Hollywood”, “One World United”, “The Illusion of Order” and “Blood, Sweat and Fears”.

jeanstanberry.com    @jeanstanberry