All or Nothing

You find yourself staring at a candid photo of someone's honey coloured memory. A brief blurb letting you know about an emotionally charged situation. Your heart rises in sympathy. Rape or other violent crime plus ethnic label to season this equation with negative connotations equals jumping to conclusions and joining the latest Witch Hunt. Quick, put on your outrage. It's All or Nothing. Join the Social Media Mob of Good Intentions and Ethnic Cleansing! Get your virtual pitchforks and boiling tar over here! Bit currency accepted!

Stop. When you look at pictures and story teasers on social media, I ask you to do one thing before you do anything else. As your heart starts to get the feels, pause. Slip out of Facebook, Instagram, or whatever app you are in. Head over to a web browser. Do a search. Is the little blurb you're seeing truth or is it false?

Many of us have unintentionally shared false posts at some point getting carried away by a plausible pitch. In the early days of Facebook, I shared what interested me with the idea we each choose our own truths to believe, and I found some of the satire to be hilarious.
The world has gotten heavier with conflicts and gate seething like a pot about to boil over on a stove.

When you share an inflammatory post, hate accented with words that tug heart strings or passive aggressive prejudice that claims to be comedy you're actively hurting other people.

You're reinforcing prejudice. You're saying it is alright to judge and hate. You plant painful lies in the back of people's thoughts without considering they'll remember the emotion and the picture, they'll forget it was proven to be false.
Stop. It isn't All or Nothing.

Refugees aren't running around the country on rape and murder sprees but on the other hand vioent American criminals aren't being extradited to the states that have warrants- many are being allowed to go and commit more crimes as they slip across state lines and do terrible things. Do you remember the article about Police departments climing they don't have the money to transport violent criminals to the states they committed crimes in to face justice?

You forgot about that? It's real news. How many times have you seen little blurbs of hate shared on media blaming refugees, blacks, men, women, or another group for some terrible crime. "Murdering some sweet young girl so her ex military Daddy took the law into his own hands." This is what the narrator in a fictional story says.
If it sounds like the introduction to a bad B movie, it isn't news. Stop. Do not share it. Fact check it. Comment on it, in case there person who shared it is not aware they are sharing a fiction and helping breed prejudice. I will note, if you put it this way, your "friend" will probably not stick around.
There is enough real tragedy in the world. There is more than enough hate. A wise man once wrote "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?"

One thought. If we all made the choice to jump as enthusiastically on  understanding and love instead of hopping the daily animosity train- if as much effort was put into respecting and communicating, think how different we could make the world?
If we looked at people wondering about their positive potential instead of assuming they'll manifest the worst behavior it makes a huge impact.
Other people aren't the enemy. Judgement, fear, and spreading inflammatory falsehoods are.

I hope that in a year I can look back and say "2018 was the year people really started questioning. 2018 was the year people started critically thinking. 2018 was the year many people held themselves accountable for their own shortcomings and they stepped up. They made changes. 2018 is the year many chose to set aside prejudice and hate. It was the first year on social media where people overwhelmed inflammatory posts with fact based comments; Snopes reported a seventy five percent drop in false hate articles."

I know, Ive got a big imagination. Imagine what the world could be like if we all set aside our fear and mistrust, if we all tried respecting each other?
This is a goal worth going All in on.