I don’t really want to get too opinionated on the whole current issue of police officers killing unarmed black people, but I do want to point out what I think.
As unfortunate it is that this is all going down, it is still ultimately one gigantic media trend. I can’t believe that I’m the only one who sees this for how it is, but the truth of the matter is that in light of one high-profile cops killing civilian story, all of them have been thrust into the spotlight for everyone to see when every single occurrence happens.
See, the thing is that if one scours the internet on a daily basis thoroughly enough, I’m willing to bet money that they can find a story of a police officer forced to kill a person in the line of duty, every single day. Granted, they may not be allegations that the deceased may or may not have been armed, or allegedly yielding when it happened, but the fact is that police probably kill people every day. Sounds gruesome, but not that it makes it any better, people, regardless of occupation, kill people, every day. Shit, sparsely a day goes by where looking at local Atlanta news doesn’t yield a death happening in the AM hours.
Unfortunately, thanks to one particular story that has caught the momentum of a runaway train, all stories involving police officers killing a person have taken the spotlight frenzy. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances behind the killing was, everything’s going to be spun and turned into a way to relate to the more recent Michael Brown incident.
There was an incident a while ago when a teacher got busted having sexual relations with a student. It just so turned out that the teacher herself was extraordinarily hot, and the story gained a tremendous amount of momentum. It wasn’t long afterward where almost on a daily basis, news stories broke all across the country of teachers having sexual relations with students.
But the thing was, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, it’s just the media put the spotlight on the topic and everyone responded accordingly. Teachers occasionally have sexual relations with their students, this isn’t anything out of the ordinary. One of my old high school teachers married one of his students as soon as she graduated.
Around 2005-06, when conflict in the Middle East broke out again, and there were stories of shit like torture of POWs and beheadings of hostages began to emerge, I admit, I got caught up in the horrific curiosity behind it all too. But once the trend caught on, as terrible as it was, stories of killings, torture, and more beheadings began cropping up regularly until the interest died down.
Unfortunately, the torture thing appears to be emerging once again now, but that’s a different story.
As morbid as it all sounds, cops killing people is all ultimately one gigantic trend. The media loves to rile people up, as it creates controversy, and controversy creates cash. As long as people keep biting the bait, sharing their clickbait stories, and continuing to get angry for the sake of being angry, this is a machine that will never stop running.
It’s times like this when I feel that my fairly general ambivalence and lackadaisical approach to trending events is definitely a positive. On social media, I might post fluff and inconsequential things, but when the day is over, I find it way preferable to caving into anger, and getting into arguments with my peers. I’d rather be happy than sad, mad, or upset.
