I am throwing this out there for the folks that are so reactionary on social media. To give them something to think about. Let’s say that you are a teacher in a classroom of 9 and 10-year-olds. The bathroom monitor grabs a student who was apparently misbehaving and holds them on the floor with a knee on the student’s neck until the student passes out. “Oh, that would never happen,” you say. But let’s say it did, and the community is in an uproar about and wants answers. But the bathroom monitor’s organization (BMO) stands with their member and claims the monitor is a really nice person that got carried away in the heat of the moment. The BMO flood the social media with photos of bathroom monitors with American Flag patches on their arms, helping little children across the street, finding lost kittens for children, and passing out coats and school supplies. The next thing you know social media is flooded with stories about how wonderful the BMOs are, and they should not all be condemned for the actions of few. Many even ask, “Where was the teacher?”

The Nine and Ten-year-olds all across America get organized and start marching on the schools to demand more training for BMOs and stricter policies regarding their behaviors. They even form a Young Lives Matter organization (YLM). The National Organization of Benevolent Bathroom Monitors gets involved. The next thing you know, photoshopped pictures of Elementary Schools being vandalized are all over social media. Slogans like ‘YLM’ and ‘BMs are Mean’ appear on school doors. Different groups start fundraisers online to repair the vandalism. The media finds out it’s a hoax and reports it on page 13 of whatever newspapers are still in existence. The fundraisers continue. Cute pictures appear on social media of John Wayne defending the much-abused BMs.

As absurd as this story is, it mirrors the irrational reactions I have seen all over social media after the murder of George Floyd. Everything from photoshopped pictures of national monuments being defaced (which keep cropping up, the photos that will never die) by ‘those commie Black Lives Matter kids,’ photos of the police doing all the things they should be doing like, helping little old ladies across the street, and taking a baby that can’t breathe to an emergency room, you know, the kinds of things we love the police for doing, protecting and serving their communities.

And when social media does not seem to have the influence to stop the protests? Why, now is the time to run the American Flag up the pole. That will certainly distract everyone from demanding that ALL people be treated equally under the law. Playing the ‘Patriot’ card is a distraction that still seems to work.

Is there a solution to the insane divisiveness that divides our country? Quite possibly, IMHO. A solution is something we will look at in Part Two.

Until Next Time,

I Remain,

Just another Zororastafarian ‘trying to get by on being quiet and shy,’ but still slows down when he sees a police car…