One of the most clichéd sayings out there is “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Pretty much everyone has heard this saying, yet it’s very apparent that there are many more that clearly know them simply as words and not necessarily sage wisdom, and are incapable of heeding to it.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s in Baltimore or Ferguson, Philadelphia or Atlanta, New Orleans or Charleston; there is rarely a time in which rioting is ever the answer. If allegations of police brutality towards black people are true, then that is wrong. Burning vehicles and buildings and erupting in physical violence with complete strangers does not make that wrong right; such is also wrong.
Those two particular wrongs most certainly aren’t going to make a right. Ever. Believe it or not, I’d wager a good bit that I’m right on this one.
I think what makes me the saddest about these miserable incidents is when it inevitably devolves into looting. I’m not sure how breaking into a Foot Locker or CVS and running off with as much merchandise as one can without paying for it rectifies police brutality. Obviously, it doesn’t, but that’s the lowest of the low in my opinion, using the veil of social protest as a smokescreen to commit more crime in ensuing chaos. The looters, are the individuals I frankly wouldn’t mind seeing some police brutality exhibited towards, but again, two wrongs wouldn’t make a right.
The bottom line is that all of this sucks. I hate tuning into the news to see or read the top story or the front page littered with bold verbiage and/or terrible imagery of violent rioting; I’m fully aware that the media has a tendency to blow up the bad and hide anything that detracts from their agenda, but the bad is still really bad. I hate how divisive this makes people I know become on social media, and frankly I’m just tired of hearing about riots and sides and poor excuses, but it’s almost impossible to avoid, and I hate that too.
I miss when the scandalous news flavor of the month was teacher sex scandals. They were so tawdry and kind of hot; tacky as it might’ve been, at least it wasn’t so depressing and socially divisive as all these stories about police brutality and retaliatory rioting.
