Something happened today. I was driving home after dropping my mom off to school, completely lost in my thoughts. I made a right turn onto a major street, not realizing that I had cut off a running woman.
“You fucking bitch!” is all I heard as I sped off. I had a chance to quickly look at her in my rearview mirror before going my own way.
I debated with myself whether I should turn around and try to find her to apologize. I continued debating for the next two streets, and then wildly swung my car around. I was a woman on a mission. I tracked her down, which was difficult because she was an exceptionally fast runner. I pulled over so I could offer to buy her breakfast, or at least apologize for cutting her off. I had a lot of work to do at home and I felt like procrastinating.
That’s my perspective. I can guess at hers. A woman in a black burqa rudely cuts her off, tracks her down, gets out of her car, and starts flailing her arms around, yelling, “Hey! I want to speak to you!”
No wonder she ran off terrified.
This got me thinking. There are only two kinds of stories you hear through media. There are either those ridiculously uplifting ones, or those that convince you that people are batshit crazy and out to kill and rape you. I had made the decision a long time ago to not follow the media any more. I was tired of listening to things that made me feel overly paranoid. I am an optimistic person, but I am not foolish. I carry a Swiss Army Knife with me wherever I go.
Instead of learning how to decode statistics and other relevant facts, students today are taught to “follow” the most sensational news. They are taught to write sensationally, not accurately. Our news is never balanced or fair. So many people have suffered from shootings this year, yet so many more have managed to successfully protect their homes and their families using guns they keep legally. Whether media offices want to simply sell their stories, push anti-gun legislation, or paint the “others” as leeches, literally everything we listen to has a deeper agenda that we may not be able to decipher.