The above image showed up on my Facebook feed this morning and it made me think about the media and how they are a major problem in our nation right now. The above image really illustrates my point.

The media is supposed to be neutral, but obviously, it is not.  If you follow mainstream media or any type of social media you see the buzz every day.  People outraged over one thing or the other, but nobody really doing anything about it.  It’s not that one little thing that outrages us, but the audacity of that incident on top of all the other little things that takes us completely over the edge.  We cannot make “black lives matter” or eliminate colleges “rape cultures” unless we start teaching our children from the very beginning that the key is, to respect all life.

Right now we are trying to change police officers who have been trained their entire life to believe, if they see a black man on the street, you should assume he’s a gang banger.  We are sending our sons to college believing if they see a girl who’s had too much to drink, it’s okay to rape her, because obviously, she’s a slut anyway.  Our culture and our small minded attitudes have trained our children to believe that acting in this way is okay.  Our judges have reinforced this behavior by ridiculing victims and giving offenders a slap on the wrist.

I have been watching as the country argues over whether or not Colin Kaepernick has the right to sit during the National Anthem or not.  Half the people believe he was being disrepectful to the country by sitting, the other half believe he was making a statement and that is his right an American citizen.  True that is his right, and we are very lucky in this country to have that right, but is he really helping his cause, by appearing disrespectful in all those other peoples eyes?

I don’t really know anything about him at all, but I do know that as a role model to children, I would hope he would pick a different venue to educate his fans about the  oppression of black men.  As an NFL player he is extremely lucky to be in the position he is in and I have no doubt that he put in a lot of work to get where he is, but he fails to recognize, he has been blessed just to be born in this country.  If he had been born in any number of third world countries around the world, it is very possible he may be struggling just to feed himself at this moment.

If he were smart, he would embrace what he has in this world.  He has the power to change the world.  He could use his position as a public figure in a positive way.  For example, to concentrate on working with children and helping them to realize that no matter what your color or the circumstances of your upbringing, you can succeed in life.

We need to stop the drama on social media.  We need to quit posting our outrage and  extending the hate to whoever has offended us today and instead, work on training our children to be better adults.  Our children are vulnerable, they only know what we teach them.

Yes, there are bad cops out there and I am very ashamed of the things that a few of them have done.  But realize this, these few police officers are in a minority of their own.  They are living in the old “Good Old Boys” system, where their white, male friends can do pretty much whatever they want and get a mere slap on the wrist.  Of course this has to stop!  But please do not condemn all police officers for the actions of a few.  There are thousands of cops out there that are committed to protect and serve their communities and they do not deserve all this hate that is being flung at them by the “Black Lives Matter” protesters.

These bad police officers are not representative of all police officers, just as Colin Kaepernick is not representative of all NFL players.  I feel that most of NFL players have respect for the game, the country that has given them this wonderful opportunity and the thousands of paying fans that support them as they get to live out their lifelong dream of playing football as a career.  Unfortunately, the NFL has been suffering from the effects of bad PR as well, as they’ve had a host of incidents by players that have been very unbecoming to the NFL’s overall image.

We cannot “Make America Great Again” with values that pick out certain people as superior to others.  If we truly want a country that is democratic and free, we cannot just “build a wall” to keep out everyone who is not white, Christian and highly intelligent males.  To be free we must realize that in our country our skin colors range from the very lightest, to the darkest.  We have Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and many more religions.  We must teach our sons that women are valuable human beings as well, that rape, no matter the circumstances, is never acceptable.

We need to teach our children to respect life and the law.  If you teach your children to have respect for the law, I guarantee I will never see you on the evening news crying because the police shot your child.  If a police officer stops you, comply, don’t resist them, fight them or even verbally abuse them.  You may very well not have done anything wrong.   That still doesn’t give you the right to act like a moron. Maybe your car matches the description of a car that has just committed a crime.  You have no idea what that Police officer is thinking.  If you are all jumpy and acting crazy, things can only deteriorate.  If you are not guilty, you have nothing to worry about.  Acting with respect, earns respect.

In my observation, our country is suffering from a general lack of respect in most of it’s citizens and an overload of drama by the media.  We need to teach our children better.  Think before you speak and before you post.  Children hear everything you say and unfortunately, they can hear the “hate” in your voice.

If you “hate” anybody, cops, black people, women, christians, there is not something wrong with them, there is something wrong with you.  In reality, there is no honor killing, no saving people.  No matter what your religious views, you are not responsible for someone else’s salvation, so if they are doing something that is “wrong” in your eyes, do yourself a favor and get over it.  Everyone has to answer to their own God in the end, you cannot change them.

Tolerance is not stepping down, but peace.  We can never have peace in our world as long as there is hate.  Realize hate only breeds more hate. I’m not against protest, but protest is very counterproductive.  Instead educate.  If you are lucky enough to be in the public eye be an example, be above the hate.  Show your friends and family that you can love and respect a homosexual, a disabled person, a black person, an Asian person, a Jewish person, the list goes on and on.  We are all different, but fundamentally the same. The more you can teach love and tolerance, the better.  We can never come together as a unified nation as long as we are divided by hate