What Happened to the Advocate?

There’s a question I have been asking myself over the past few weeks. I know that it has more than one answer, but I also know that it has a deeper meaning; something it all boils down to.

The question?

Why are some voices heard? In a world that does nothing but talk, there are just some voices that get through to the masses, and strike a match that starts a fire in the voice box of society. There are just some people that you listen to when they speak. The problem is, we haven’t had that voice in a long time. When was the last time someone wrote a speech like Dr. King’s, "I have a Dream"—a speech that shook the bedrock of our culture? No one has a voice in this world anymore, not one that is powerful enough to change the course of history.

I know this sounds hopeless, and maybe ignorant to some voices that do shine in this day and age. However, at the same time, I don’t think I’m far off from identifying an actual problem that no one is paying attention to.

Technology has made great strides in the name of communication over the past few decades. Just as many would say, it has also done a great deal of damage to communication as well—it has a feeling of quantity over quality.

Riots, marches, and outspoken minds have had their fair share of flares over the past few years, and the tumultuous news of our generation always finds its way to the media. With this, and an undeniable bipartisan division, we have the idea that the division we witness, the division we fear, is conducive to the hate we have for one another—hate for the opposition, hate for the different, and hate for everything uncertain.

Except for a short few, we are not divided because of hate. We are not divided because of hatred, because we are divided by the masterful tricks that we employ on ourselves. We are unable to stand by one another, not because of hate, but fear and blindness. We fear what we do not know, and are blind to what we should do.

Though the moral compass of the masses points strongly towards what’s right, our compass as a whole, as a society, and as a people is unfathomably scrambled. We are sitting here blaming the other side. We sit like children who haven’t been taught the one basic rule: Do on to others as you wish others would do on to you. Then we wonder why the ‘other side’ sits and points the blame at us.

It is a cycle. A cycle that will bring destruction unless we find change. We need to realize that there is no ‘other side,’ there is only us; there are only humans.

We can’t continue down this path, because the destination is a desolate dead end. We can not let our differences rip at the inert workings of our society, because that’s what will make us weak. We must be able to look at other humans as our brothers and sisters, despite any differences they may have from us. We live in this country. The country of the free—and we must act like it. But our pride is to blame. Our pride is a nasty roadblock we must overcome, so we can prosper as a country, and flourish as we should.

We ruminate in our mess, and always come to the same conclusions, fighting the same old fights, and ignoring any responsibility we have. I’m here to say that we are not as lost as we think we are.

As the world population, we are only a few steps away from the right path if only we would look in the right direction. There is a mountain top, and we have our backs turned against it, because we are too busy fighting with the people behind us.

Turn your back to the hate, and accept others as they are. It is one of the hardest things to do, and I will not deny that. But the right path isn’t necessarily the easy path. So let us take it together.