No one can deny that the United States is more racially divided now than it has been in the last 20 years. Riots have broken out, violence has become common in place of peace, and things do not seem to be getting any better.

When events like the deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castille, and five innocent police officers occur, both sides leap into action to “solve” the problem.

The issue with that is, neither side is actually solving anything. Those in the #BlackLivesMatter movement rush to immediately victimize all people of color while vilifying all police officers while the conservative right does the exact opposite. Both sides have legitimate claims, but neither can look past their own rhetoric. It’s why Leon Wolf’s piece on Dallas was spread throughout the right and the left; it crossed that barrier.

Two police officers from Dallas, Senior Corporal Morris Pope and Lieutenant Thomas Glover, have a message for the country to hear after their city was rocked by that devastating, take a look:

“We have to go into the communities and we have to listen to what the community states”, says Pope, “when people say they have been… they feel marginalized, when people say that they don’t feel like they’ve been heard, when people look at what happened in Minnesota… it should but it doesn’t transcend race. It should transcend ethnicity.”

He goes on later to say “officers need the support of the community”, and obviously the reverse is true as well. To sit and say “yeah, well, I don’t like what a lot of the idiots in #BlackLivesMatter have done so screw them” or “I don’t like what a police officer did so screw all cops” is absolutely counterproductive and it is incredibly dangerous. The community cannot thrive without the protection of the police, and the police cannot protect the community if they are not actively involved in and with the community.

Pope sums it all up with one line that I believe everyone needs to hear:

“Rhetoric without results means nothing”

Being willing to talk a big game does not matter if you are not willing to do the work to actually make the changes required.

What are some of those actions? Well, according to Lieutenant Glover, “we have to pass laws at the Federal level that make it illegal for police officers to do misconduct, whether it be at the local, state, or federal level”.

He does go on to recognize that those laws already exist, but that they are not seen in action, something Leon Wolf also pointed out in his piece:

“Here’s all you need to know: since 2000, NYPD officers have shot and killed about 180 people. Only 3 of those officers was even indicted for anything and only 1 was convicted, for a non-jail time offense. And these statistics are fairly typical of the nation at large.”

I won’t pretend to be able to address these issues as eloquently as Leon did, but it doesn’t require sophistication. When we sit here entrenched in our political rhetoric, we ignore the ripe opportunity for change and unity.

Talk to your black friends, your black neighbors your black coworkers. More importantly, listen to them. Their experiences are something you may not fully understand unless you are willing to sit and listen. They have stories that matter, their suffering is real to them, and you can’t deny that. They are people, not political currency. Don’t become so blinded by your anger towards a portion of a specific group that you refuse to acknowledge them as human beings, be like

Don’t become so blinded by your anger towards a portion of a specific group that you refuse to acknowledge them as human beings, be like this instead.

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