Turbulent Times

During my undergrad, I spent three semesters with The Lumberjack, Humboldt State University’s newspaper as a writer and Opinion Editor.

As Opinion Editor, during our weekly editorial meetings the production team would pick a topic and I would be responsible for writing the editorials.

Here is an article published in The Lumberjack August 24, 2016 that I wrote.

In 2017, The Lumberjack revamped their website losing all the archives of previous students work. I salvaged what I could through Google doc’s, which is what The Lumberjack used in their editing process. I have published at least 30 articles over the course of  3 semesters, in addition to winning national awards for a weekly column I produced for the Lumberjack, “Slauson Girl Speaks.”

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t has been a turbulent summer for America. We have seen yet again, another summer marked with massive protest concerning police killing unarmed Black males.

Two Black males who were former veterans named Micah Johnson and Gavin Long were shaken personally by this problem that America has in relation to the Black male population. They realized that although they put their lives on the line to serve our country, poor Black males in America still seem to be completely disregarded from the family of humanity and marked as trouble.

This triggered something in the minds of these men, whereas five cops lost their lives and more were wounded and America was marked by yet another tragedy.

This summer America was also shaken when 29-year-old Omar Mateen shot up a Florida nightclub killing 49 people and injuring many more.

As if that was not enough, within all of this, America is in the midst of one of the most important presidential elections of the century. It is a tough time for America. We are experiencing a very embarrassing and troubling moment in our nation’s history. Not only do race relations in this country continue to be a problem and a major topic of conversation at the moment, we have a presidential race that appears to be out the pages of a Saturday Night Live skit.

At the moment there is a lot of confusion, debating and overall hate that many Americans find themselves engaged in. With this election quickly approaching, it is important for Americans to come together now, more than ever. This is not the time for American citizens to be divided. We should not have animosity towards one another. Reality is, with the wrong president in office, we as a country could all potentially become an oppressed group through aspects such as harsher laws and regulations.

As we gear up for this presidential election, many Americans have the attitude of just picking the lesser of two evils when it comes to Hillary and Trump. We need to keep in mind to pick a candidate that has answers to the issues that plague this country–whether it be police brutality, gun control, ways to improve race relations or issues regarding jobs and the economy.

The outsourcing and lack of jobs, access to health care, taxes and wages affect all Americans especially those of us who occupy the 99%. While we fight amongst each other because of our lack of understanding concerning one another, we need to keep in mind that the needs of the many are left in the hands of a small few. And that these small few, hold a large majority of this nation’s wealth. These are the people that we need to be turning our attention and frustrations toward. They have the power to implement the change which we as America desperately need. Make your voices heard this election and let’s start as Americans, collectively, envisioning ways to enrich our future.

Do not allow our different class statuses and ethnicities to determine whether or not someone is worthy in this country. We should all see the worth in each other under one unified aspect. At the end of the day, we are all Americans and we all have to co–exist in this country together.