We, collectively as a society, never care enough, early enough.

I read something on Tumblr not too long ago. It said “when you shake up a soda, do you blame the soda for bursting with pressure or the force that shook it?”

Minorities are the soda. Baltimore is the soda.

I struggle with how I feel about Baltimore, because everything is so mixed up. Everything is so confusing to me. I just want to know why. And no matter who I talk to, or what I say, or whatever scenario I imagine in my head I cannot for the life of me understand why.

Why did the officers allow Freddie Gray to die? Why wasn’t he fastened in a seatbelt? Why wasn’t he given immediate medical attention? No one has answers and that burns a hole in my trust for the police; it strikes fear into my heart because one day someone could be wondering “why” about me.

I understand that not all officers are bad, not all officers are the same. I know – but how am I to decipher between the good officers and the bad? I cannot, none of us can. That makes me uneasy.

As a student and a young adult, I am bewildered by the lack of empathy around the country. A human being, multiple human beings, were killed by the people who promised to protect them and yet the media’s focus has been the protests.

Baltimore began rioting and now people are paying attention. But why wasn’t the death of Freddie Gray and others before him being killed in similar circumstances enough?

“Don’t riot, it won’t solve anything.” Oh. But if you’re favorite sports teams loses, or even wins, rioting is excused. It’s acceptable.

“Don’t riot,” says a country that was built off of violence. “Don’t riot,” says a country that began its “success” off of damaging the property and lives of others only to take what did not belong to them. Apparently it is okay to be angry and assertive. That is until your neighbor, your brother, and your friend are all killed by the police.

The “thugs” are rioting, they say. The names, the labels, the stereotypes, the discrimination, the mistreatment is the reason people are rioting, but the same people that label rioters as “thugs” never ask why they’re rioting.

They never ask minorities why we’re angry. Ever.

They tell us to get over it. Get over the struggles; Get over slavery; Get over racism, but they never forget 9/11.

Nobody wants to talk about it, they’ll feel uncomfortable. Nobody wants to understand, because they don’t live it. How can we bring children into the world and raise a generation where we tell them that their problems aren’t important enough to be heard?

Because that’s what I feel like this is. I feel like people aren’t listening until they’re being made to listen.

I don’t know that I necessarily disagree with the protests because I don’t disagree with Baltimore’s anger. It hurts to be ignored when you are literally crying out for help.