Violence does more damage to a community than what people realize. Children being exposed to violence at a young age can affect them in their journey of life physically and emotionally.  Any type of violence can result in an aftermath that will last a lifetime. Places where violence is something that happens very often have a higher effect on the children that live there. When someone is exposed to something all the time it becomes a norm to them. The children who are exposed to violence regularly become accustomed to going through traumatic experiences. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an result for some kids that see violence regularly. Dealing with violence is a lot for anyone but children specifically need a support team that will give them the help they need to move forward with their lives.

“Dr. Spivack found that children who live in inner cities experience higher rates of PTSD than do combat veterans, due in large part to the fact that the majority of kids living in inner-city neighborhoods are routinely exposed to violence.” Children who live in the city should not have higher rates than people who fought in actually wars. Being a child you should not be exposed to violence regularly. A routine of violence will start to make children believe that violence is ok.  Also it will make them believe that violence is an solution to problems which it is not. Children repeat behaviors that they see. So all the unhealthy behaviors that they see in their environments will eventually be apart of their behaviors. It is very true that people are a product of their environment. If a child's environment is constantly filled with violence then what do you expect a child contribute to their community. Feeding children garbage such as violence in their most impressionable years will end up hurting society because children are what you shape them to be. So if society feeds the children good things like healthy problem solving skills and love then the future will be totally different.

Double Jeopardy is the prosecution of a person twice for the same offense. We’ve seen this brought up in the courtroom many times. It was created to stop the arresting and prosecution of men for the same crimes using the same evidence. However, it’s shifted into a facade, or front. Black men and minorities of this country are facing the same accusations/offenses with nearly the same evidence, in an instance, for nearly all of the crimes that we’re witnessing on the news or the media. Not only do they go to jail for the same reasons, but their brothers and cousins are all doing the same. We’ve failed to give them the benefit of the doubt and immediately think they deserve this. Our country has crucified minorities to the prison systems that have now created mass incarceration. When we really sit to think what may cause this, we blame it on the hoods. We blame the minorities who aren't given a way out for their actions. We blame the weed and the drugs for playing a role in these harsh environments. We do all, but blame the government, the police, and inequality itself. There's a clear role on how white supremacy plays into the ideologies police officers are told to heed by.

Minority men are not given the same privileges to maintain jobs or create careers for themselves. It’s a generational cycle that has been created by the white man during the 1900’s. A system where the black man has to fight ten times harder to make something out of themselves for their families. Although one man does it, it does not change the fate of the rest of their families. It’s all tied down to the government having their own preferences to who they seem to want and not want in their fancy housing developments or their private schools. These ideas of the black man being dangerous is the evidence being used against them in their everyday trials. When a black man applies to a job, he is being tried for the offenses of previous black men. When a black man applies to college, he is being tried for the offenses of not being smart enough or not having the capabilities to succeed. When a black man puts his hand in this pocket, he is being tried for the offenses of fear initiating the death of the black man. “You’re guilty until proven innocent” is a systematic phrase that’s being used to create excuses to keep them incarcerated until finally evidence is found. There’s over a hundred cases of men who have been in prisons or jails for more than 3 years over a false accusation. The list goes on with evidence tampering that affected these trials just to get a conviction. Not to mention the amount of money they have to pay for a good lawyer, but are stuck with a half ass public defender. Don’t get me wrong public defenders can do their jobs to the best of their ability, but imagine the amount of cases they are facing with minority men that are all facing the same charge; drugs, assault, attempted murder, etc. All of these cases are immediately attached to a black man. These ideas that are put into their heads to believe that it’s a black man who must of done this proves the double jeopardy that has been placed on their backs.

We see crime and we cry for our cities. All of America is fighting for this big change that can somehow make our cities and our neighborhoods safe again, but are not fighting the oppression that is being placed within our cities. We fail to realize that as minorities, we are being tried for the same offenses as our ancestors and will continue to fall short on the pedestal. Steve Early wrote, “1. Rewarding cops for connecting with the community, 2. Hiring for Diversity, 3. Partnering with activists and city groups, and 4. Staying away from guns” as steps in his article on police violence. (2014) As America, there should never be steps that we have to take to stop police violence. In the face of double jeopardy, black men are all convicted with one piece of evidence. Police? All seen innocent against the killings of black men. Why? Double jeopardy. White policemen have seen black men as a threat since the beginning, as soon as they attempt to put their hand out or make a movement it falls under “I thought they were grabbing a weapon”. Not only do we justify the killings with this one phrase, but Philadelphia has created Stop-and-Frisk allowing policemen to stop a car basically by preference. “As many as 20,000 people were stopped in 2017 without a justifiable reason,” is one of many statistics taken over the years since this has started. All statistics that prove to why we should not continue to allow this form of double jeopardy. They’re all being stopped from previous offenses.

To conclude, America has failed to stop their cities from conducting these malpractices and overlook the convictions that took a little too much like the other.

Cited sources:

https://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/police-violence-is-not-inevitable-four-ways-a-california-police-chief-connected-cops-with-communities

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000004027684/a-conversation-with-police-on-race.html?action=click

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam

https://www.aclupa.org/news/2018/01/08/analysis-philadelphia-police-stop-and-frisk-data-shows-illeg

What does being a patriot means to a be full-blooded American patriot? For many, the stereotypical image of American patriot includes a pickup truck with an American flag waving in the wind as he (because it’s usually a white male) trucks down an open highway. Or, it could be dressing up as a Marvel superhero and claiming you are the symbol of freedom. Although tacky and painted with a broad brush, some people who are patriots fit this description.

Looking from the outside in, people see us as a pot of hooting and hollering greasy Americans. To those observing, patriots are always “hoorah hoorah America,” who will defend their countries name no matter what.  When it comes to militarism and fighting for your country, what role does patriotism play? A person's’ love for their own country is a beautiful thing, right? The expectation that you would do anything to improve it as a productive member of society. Pay your debt for living in such a place through taxes, and sometimes pay with your life when fighting for freedom. Many of the wars that are fought on U.S. soil have been for freedom. Some examples include the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the War of 1812, and WWII. In no way is Patriotism inherently a bad thing but we do see instances where it is misused in War.

In order to understand something we have to know the history. When America was first being formed, Nathan Hale, a soldier for the continental army, laid down the new America. His last words, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”. The relationship between patriotism and can be a very slippery slope. It is most dangerous when it slowly becomes a reason for war instead of serving as a reason to conserve peace.

It is safe to say that it flourishes as deep love for your own country but it can become something more harmful when you introduce means of violence and force. A good example of this is the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. After the terror attacks of 9/11, America has been on the watch for similar instances ever since. The war first established to combat the terror attacks but quickly became about fulfilling a duty: preserving America’s freedom which was in no way threatened. For around twenty years, this was being fought on the basis that those who loved America would be willing to die to protect it. As the US occupied Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places in the middle east, it was evident that al Qaeda controlled the majority of the country. The toxicity of patriotism comes into play because of a lot of what we believed the war was being fought to counter terrorism. But in reality, I would say that it was truly being fought for a democratically controlled government, or at least something relatively close to it. Anything closer to an ideal American for in government would be enough for America. Both sides loved their country dearly as one should. David Noise from Psychology today says, It’s been called the last refuge of scoundrels. “It is undeniably linked to“us-against-them” tribal impulses, rooted in emotion and often impervious to reason. It feeds nationalism and militarism,...” The war fueled by patriotism took nearly twenty years to come to an end and even now, people are confused to why it was fought in the first place.

An integral part that plays into who we are as people is what we take in from the media. We have stations like ABC, FOX, and CNN reporting on the horrors of war and how “our troops are fighting” for our freedom. Not only is it about what the news is reporting, but also who they’re reporting on.

In our current political climate and all of the controversy surrounding government politics, the center of it all has been President Donald Trump. If you tune into a news station, it’s more than likely you will see the President speaking about a new policy that will, “Make America Great Again.” For Trump, part of that work included praising America’s military. “[Trump] famously tried to get the Pentagon to throw a massive parade for Veterans Day, with missiles and tanks and flags rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue,” Tina Nguyen a reporter for The Hive newspaper writes. That parade would reportedly cost 92 million dollars. Of course, other Trump supporters fully supported this idea because their leader thought it was a great idea, but also because they are already conditioned to love the military, that’s what America is all about. True patriotic behavior.

As Americans, we should not continue this culture of blindly following ideas that might leave questioning ourselves or this country. In no way is patriotism a bad thing. It just so happens when left to interpretation, it can easily become dangerous and violent. Treading the line between good and evil is not enough to call our country inherently good if whenever we get into the affairs of others it turns out bad. Patriotism can be molded into what Americans want it to be, to serve whatever purpose for whatever reason. But love for something should never be the reason we go and destroy something else.

We hear numerous stories from different people all the time. Whether it’s drama, one’s experience, breaking news, or just something made for some laughs. But how can we know if someone’s telling the truth? Can a story be true only based off of one’s person’s point of view? Many people may question someone’s reliability because they believe there’s only one truth but it’s actually possible for a story to be true and fiction at once simply because one person’s truth can be someone else’s fiction and vice versa. This is different for everyone as we all have individual opinions and beliefs that affect how we process and react to certain things. But society made us blindly believe in things that are simply not true. Because of this, people aren’t truly understanding what they are being told, restricting them from other thoughts, ideas, and opportunities.

For example: police brutality. There’s a lot of rumors that policemen have been abusing their power and have been targeting people of color, which is gradually becoming true over time. According to a WITNESS.org article by Madeleine Bair, in 2014, a 36-year old woman named Kianga Mwamba was attacked by the police for recording them beating a man in handcuffs. She was tased and charged for an attempt of running over a police officer. When she was released from jail, the video on her phone that recorded everything was gone. Police officers have this armor that protects them from initially being accused of a crime because their job is supposed to do the opposite. This led to Mwamba being falsely accused of a crime she didn’t commit. Luckily, in her case, her truth was unveiled after discovering that her phone had backed up the video automatically but even with the truth out, she hasn’t been able to seek disciplinary action against the police officers who assaulted her.

At first, this story was only told from a police officers point of view. The information was biased in a way to make them seem innocent and for the woman to be guilty. But why did we believe them in the first place? It’s because we grew up believing that it’s okay to trust the authorities. Their story may have told what happened but not the entire story was explained and this is where truth and fiction overlaps. In the officers’ world, this is what happened; this is their truth. For the woman, it was only partially true. Her intentions were not to hurt the police officers, but to share what’s really happening behind the scenes of these police officers. The video recording is another truth to the story as well as it reveals the events that lead up to her arrest. Charges were dropped against her but the officers remain untouched. The power of the officers’ truth had affected her more than the actual truth and this is where the problem is in our society. A story must be laid out completely from all angles in order to thoroughly understand how to take action upon it.

Another example where a truth is not entirely told is from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried novel. This book was about the Vietnam War and the experiences of what the soldiers went through before, during and after the war. A quote by him states, “I have been accused of ignoring the Vietnamese in my fiction, ignoring their concerns and so on. It's not a question of ignoring, though, but of not knowing. It involves the question of point of view.” For the author to tell a story from one point of view is telling one part of the story, similar to the Mwamba case. On a surface level, it influences the reader to only think about what is being told but on a deeper level, the reader is slowly believing this one side and not acknowledging the other.

Although this novel is fiction, the author was able to execute a story that made it seem very real. The stories of these soldiers were detailed and personal which made it believable. Emotions and certain characteristics can influence what we would or wouldn’t believe. The way a person shares a story is another way that truth and fiction can overlap. It’s possible for a person to completely convince another person with a made up story, and for a person who’s telling the truth not be heard.

The question of the idea of the truth and fiction overlapping is what do we truly believe? We tend to only remember things that make an impression on us and that means that it’s significant in some way. It’s okay to believe one side over the other but it’s about respecting the other point of views as well as your own. This mindset is not often applied to the justice system which is why people are constantly being mistreated. Also, it silences the voices who are already so small to begin with. We need to understand that there’s different sides to everything and that it’s not always about pinpointing things to the root but about how the idea grew to be. We should also explore the idea that it is possible for something to be true and fiction at the same time, it’s just the matter of how we choose to perceive it. With that, we need to take a step back and look at it as a whole.