“Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” Proverbs 3:3
My husband and I were watching the news last night. Being broadcast all over the nation was a story about a young man being shot by a police officer. It occurred several months back, went to trial, was reviewed for three months by a grand jury (only) and the verdict was in.
All over the streets, in several major cities, people gathered in groups of a few hundred awaiting the announcement. This story had become, what some people declared, a race issue. Here is where the tricky part comes into play.
Those who were watching from home heard the explanation of why the verdict was decided. Unfortunately, those in the streets only heard the verdict not the explanation. The explanation made perfect sense because what was originally told to the public, months prior, was inaccurate information and was only discovered after all the evidence was collected and reviewed by the grand jury. What happened next among those people is a shame.
The reporters recorded many people civilly leaving the scene after the announcement took place. People from both sides of the situation. However, since the news broadcasters or public officials didn’t think to broadcast, via loud speakers, the entire announcement that those at home heard, riots broke out.
From what the reporters chose to show of the riots, people were breaking into and destroying businesses. What purpose does that serve? It didn’t change anything with the outcome. It didn’t get back at anyone involved. Most of the people who were looting were doing so, not because they agreed with either side, they just wanted to take advantage of a bad situation.
Most of this could have been avoided, if only people heard the entire speech and utilized a little kindness because they understood the whole truth.
Ignorant: lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact; uninformed; unaware.
Wisdom: knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action.
I believe those in charge were lacking wisdom and those involved in the destructive actions were behaving ignorantly. In my opinion, in this situation, lacking wisdom far out weighed the ignorance because they could have prevented some of the ignorance from occurring.