When I heard about all the flack that Miley Cyrus was getting for the label that she used to describe the Texas shooter, to say surprise was at the forefront was an understatement. In the brief two years that I have lived in this country, it has been very apparent that Americans take their constitutional rights to heart.
It’s her right to speak her mind
When it was seen that Miley was being criticized for the stance that she had taken, I really got to thinking. Why is it that people are so quick to ‘bash’ another person under the cover of an online account or some other method of communication, that doesn’t involve them meeting face to face?
I also wonder if those same detractors would have been so vocal, had they had the opportunity to say those same things to Ms. Cyrus’s face. It is a sad day in any country’s history when stories of mass shootings and other forms of violence become the norm.
When a person, who is simply expressing their views – as is their right under the constitution, is criticized for that expression, there is something wrong. More people need to be like Ms. Cyrus and call a spade a spade. One online reader of Ms. Cyrus’s post even went so far as to say that ‘race had nothing to do with this,’ and that person probably was right.
But the whole question of race makes one wonder what the response would have been had the shooter been an African American man and had the people in the church been Caucasian.
Race is on a lot of minds in recent months
The fact of the matter is that this great country that over 323.1 million of us call home, was founded all of us. It was founded by the Native Americans that called this land home; by the immigrants that landed on Plymouth Rock; by the Asians that migrated seeking work and a better life, by the other Eastern Europeans, and even by the African slaves that were brought her and later came to call this country, 'home.'
Too much emphasis is being placed on the race of these shooters and not enough on the fact that these mentally unstable people have such easy access to the guns that they are using to wreak havoc on our society.
By virtue of our very history, race should not be a factor that divides us and yet too many times, when something of this nature happens, the race or ethnicity of the shooter is always brought up. We all need to stop seeing race and start seeing the individuals behind the outer skin that so many people are judged by. Maybe when we do we will be able to get a better handle on what is going on in this country.
