I have never been one to voice my strong opinions about polarizing situations. But to me, what I have been seeing is the violation of basic human rights. Blatant racism and ignorance.

These days have got me feeling extremely uncomfortable, which is good. We can’t always live a comfortable life. We’ve got to accept, embrace and act on change.

It’s not just the current events that are making me uneasy though. I’m also uneasy about what is happening online.

Spreading awareness on social media is good, yes. Obviously there are many people who are extremely well-informed about what is going on and who want to spread their knowledge and opinions. I respect that entirely.

But then there are people like me… who are not as well-informed, whose opinions are easily swayed. These people see these post/repost trends and they hop on the train.

What worries me is that people are not diving deep enough into the situation. They are simply posting for the sake of posting without educating themselves first.

I’m at the educating part right now. Of course I want to be an active member of society. Of course I want to help. But first I must glean my own understanding of things. I have to read up on history, primary sources, and all sorts of different news articles. There’s an inexaustible list of all those that my peers have been sharing; that’s great. It is only after we’ve thoroughly educated ourselves do we reach our full potential of making an impact, of reaching our full ability to understand and empathize.

Here’s another thing: how much can we trust the news anymore? How can we learn to see through the implicit bias of writing and speech? Is there even a way to do that?

These are the thoughts that have been plaguing me. All this unrest and turmoil… it means change is happening. And hopefully it’s change for the better.