This post may confuse me, I don’t know what to write here, and all of it has to do with the riots in Baltimore. I have narrowed it down to three things, and hopefully they won’t ramble on too much.
Context: There are many people commenting on Baltimore without any context on how that place is, or how it works. It makes me think of The Wire. Most people loved it, but they only did so because of the dialogue, the drug scenes, or the excitement. They missed the city in general, and looked right past the corruption and decay that lives and breathes through it. Looking through my Facebook, and then doing some independent research with people on the ground, some social science, and picking up some other trusted sources, I found out just how much twist is going on with some of the pictures, stories, and narrative surrounding the city and its current state.
Media: The laziness of the mainstream media disappoints me. The outright propaganda of the “blog” media angers me. The people who are ready to draw battle lines so quickly scare me. There are some outlets who are on the ground and are actually interested in finding out the story (See Vice) but there are also outlets that are no more than scare machines (see The Blaze, Brietbart). There were talks of “Race War” and “Gang Insurrection” right out of The Warriors. No followup done, just repeated in the news as fact, and just created more fear.
Hatred: People don’t see the big picture. I don’t even know what that picture is. It could be a better police system, tighter controls, or community activism. What isn’t the big picture, is hate. The language being used and the people who are behind it display such vitriol. It doesn’t create a conversation, it just makes people dig in. When you are vengeful, you don’t look at the other side, and if you don’t look – you can’t possibly listen. As I said, I don’t know exactly what has to happen, but nothing can if we don’t have dialogue.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 