An Argument for the Other Side

Opinion by Esperandieu Elbon

Since the murder of George Floyd at the hands of officer Derrick Chauvin, the united states has seen a resurgence in protests against police brutality under the Black Lives Matter Movement. Peaceful, law abiding protests happened in ALL 50 states. It was clear that across the country, people wanted real and meaningful police reform more than ever. Understandably, protests degenerated into rioting and even further into looting. Once that happened, all we heard about was rioting and looting, with people taking no care to differentiate between the ones who wanted change and the ones who just wanted to take advantage of the situation for their own personal gain. This drowned out most of the protests from national news. While protests are still going on, the real issues have still not been addressed. The protests gave us Black Lives Matter Avenues and a few toppled statues. In the end, those do little, if anything at all, to change what was at the heart of the protests. This is a complicated issue, deeply rooted in our society, culture, and politics. While I do not have a solution to offer, a magic spell that will make everything better at once, I will say that we must be willing to sit down and converse on the matter. Consistently harping ad hominems at each other and making uneducated/uninformed decisions at the ballot box will only serve to further divide and to hurt us.

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Credits

The Street