The Divided States of America

I don't even know if I should be writing about this.

I would like to preface this by saying that I am in no way, shape, or form qualified to talk about this besides being a concerned American citizen.

And if there's one thing we should all be...it's concerned.

But more than concerned: terrified, disgusted, exhausted, of what our country is going through right now. 

If you are going to respond to this post saying I'm stupid or ignorant or whatever you can think of, you can kindly guide yourself out now. While I could be all of those things, I warned you ahead of time to get out.

Of the many years sitting through social studies and history classes, I never thought I would have to witness anything like what happened in the 1950s or even the Civil War. But here I am, 3 years removed from my last history class, and history is repeating itself. 

I hope that our country can look at itself in the mirror, like after a rough night out, and say "What the hell are you doing with yourself?"

I can only hope that one day my kids will sit in the same history classes I sat in and say, "They were still judging each other by the color of their skin? They were still being judged for who they chose to love? They weren't even safe going to their job?" 

But it doesn't even feel that way... it feels like we've dug ourselves into a hole, and how the hell do we get out?

Honestly, I don't even feel comfortable thinking about having kids because I would feel bad bringing them into a country that is literally losing its shit.

One of the most painful things for me to hear is, "America is the greatest country in the world."

Based on what?

Obviously, we have it much better than 3rd world countries, and war filled countries like Syria.

But what about our country makes it so much greater than every other country. Because right now, moving to Sweden or Canada or basically any other civilized country is looking pretty damn nice. 

Saying we're the greatest country in the world is insinuating that we have every aspect of our country perfected past all the others. And there is nothing perfect about the world we're living in right now.

Maybe at one time America was the greatest country in the world. But I also think, that people are grasping so tightly to the past and that somehow, miraculously, our country is going to snap back to a time long, long ago. One of the things that pisses me off the most is when anyone states that the founding fathers did this and that because they foresaw this happening. If you genuinely think that the founding fathers foresaw anything that is happening right now, you're out of your mind. The founding fathers didn't even know there would be cars and electricity, let alone this shit. God bless the founding fathers, but please, leave them out of your conversations about today's current events.

It honestly boggles my mind that immigrants even want to come to America anymore. Maybe they don't see the news stories that pop up numerous times a day about everyone being shot, from club goers to black men to police officers. I don't know what their American dream is but mine is to make it through each day without being in a public place and being shot. I wish that sounded ridiculous, but  it just doesn't anymore...

While I won't directly state my opinions on gun control, obviously something that we're doing is not effing working. Going back to living in the past, get over it, we're not. We've been rudely and abruptly been evicted to the past. You can either stand there staring at the house that was once yours, or you can get off your ass and go find a new one. SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE. I don't know what that is, but the scary thing is, no one does. Not even our two presidential candidates (I'll let you form your own opinions on them; Kanye for 2020 isn't looking too bad). I just wish everyone could stop being so caught up in their own selfish feelings. We get it, you're a Democrat, you're a Republican. Now that we've gotten the titles out of the way, maybe we can work towards a compromise. Because as much as I wish I could live in this country completely alone right now, I'm stuck with you millions of other people, so I might as well think about the resolution for the greater good.

While I know some people want to blame everything on terrorists, I hate to break it to you, but terrorists are a tiny fraction of the issue that is going on within our borders. The events that have happened in the past couple days have not included a single terrorist, just plain ol' American citizens like you and me. It is police officers killing black men, black men killing police officers, mothers killing their daughters in the streets outside their home. "But that lady was crazy." Well thank you for guiding me to my next point. There is an overwhelming correlation between mass shootings and mental health issues. While gun control is a major issue, we have to, have to, have to look at our mental health services. While the population is growing, governors like Terry Branstad are closing mental health facilities. How does that make sense? A higher population of people means more people affected by mental illness but let's just shut these places down? I'm not a genius by any means, but for me, the numbers aren't adding up on that one. I also don't think it should be controversial to want a country where mentally ill couldn't as easily purchase guns, but..what do I know, right?

And the fact that race is a huge fuel to this whole nasty fire...like why? I saw in a story about the Dallas shootings that police were talking to a "lighted-skinned black woman." Why does it matter what race she is, but even more so, the level of her blackness? If that's a thing; I didn't think it was, but the story seems to state otherwise. Like that should be our smallest issue, so we could focus on important things, but instead, we are all still caught up on a biological trait that no one can help. I think we should all just take "black" and "white" and "Muslim" (which by the way isn't a race) out of our vocabularies. It shouldn't be a relevant fact in any story that "they were black" or "they were white." They were a person, just like you. 

A word that is seemingly often forgotten is the world "united." Yes, the world in the name of our country...where is it? I know it's not here. There's absolutely nothing "united" about our country. Black versus white. Gay versus straight. Democrat versus Republican. Guns versus no guns. It's a joke to call ourselves the United States of America...we're the Divided States of America. 

I don't know, this post probably rambled and possibly made no sense. But my mind just races thinking about all the atrocity that is happening in our country. I don't care what your opinions are or if you care what mine are, but I just hope one thing everyone can agree on is that there needs to be change. I just wish people would get mad, but instead of at each other, mad at the situation our country has made for itself. Mad that we've become complacent to the terror that exists every day for an American citizen. Mad that our newsfeeds are constantly filled with story after story of people being murdered. Mad that amongst it all, we can't even come together, look past each other's physical appearance, and try to figure out a solution. 

"The best way out is always through."