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I drew this drawing of the crowd with two police officers representing love and hate on the morning of the Dallas protest, before the police officers were killed and wounded. I was going to post it the next morning but felt it would be insensitive to do so. It was now an incomplete statement.
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So over the next few days I drew this one as a companion piece. It shows the opposite scene. Not cops in charge, but the crowd. The crowd has the power of love and hate just as much as the cops do.
Every Day
We as people must always decide, every day, whether we are going to act and react with love or hate. When violence happens to someone, especially someone you don’t know and might be scared of, or antagonistic towards, are you looking for a reason to not care? That means your heart is moving towards hate. It is hardening. You are telling it that those people don’t care. That they deserved it.
Only one person in the past week has deserved anything close to the fate of death, and that was the killer of the 5 police officers. But even then, you don’t have to say or feel it with hate. You can say it sadness that his life went so terribly awry, you can feel it with love and compassion for the families left behind.
Part of the Problem
The other 16 people? They didn’t deserve to be wounded or die. If your political position is such that you are hating one of these people; the cops who shot Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile, or Alton and Philandro themselves, then you are slowly but surely marching into the ‘part of the problem’ column. If you feel the shooting of the 14 people in Dallas was in any way justified, you are already deep into that column and need a wake up call.
Age 80
Imagine yourself at age 80. Who are you? Your decisions now, every day, are making you into that person. Do you want that person to be hateful, bitter, angry, resentful? If you do, then practice those things and you will become them. If you don’t, if you want, at age 80, to be kind, loving, forgiving, understanding, compassionate then you must practice those things now and every day. It’s how life works: You become what you practice.
Drawings and commentary © 2016 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Mignon McLaughlin, 1913 – 1983, American journalist