A new hashtag floated across my social media feed today.

Again.  And again.  And again.

I admittedly new nothing of the situation as my workday doesn’t always allow for current event checks.  Also, because I prefer silence instead of radio noise, I often travel home in quiet.

Leave it to social media to fill me in.

And since I had no idea what or who this hashtag was attached to, I did what we all do when we want to know more…I googled.  CNN was the first site to pop up.  I clicked, read the horrifying account of what happened to Mr. Alton Sterling, and then I watched the video.

Jaw and heart dropping at the same moment, I almost couldn’t believe what I saw, though the video was quite clear.  I shake my head even now.  Thank God someone had the clarity of mind to film.

Our nation has had more than its fair share of bad news as of late.  Attack upon attack.  Death upon death.  Yet, when I pulled up my internet browser, the largest images were of Hillary Clinton and “The Best Grilled Cheese.”  I scanned the stories, and there at the very bottom of the screen, was a photo captioned, “A Riot in the Streets of Baton Rouge.”

After viewing the eyewitness account on film, I watched as Mr. Sterling’s wife bravely approached a microphone.  It’s hard to hear what she says though, because her 15 year old son is sobbing so loudly.  The gut-wrenching sobs of a broken heart.

And I couldn’t stay silent.  I could not sit back and pretend as if this wasn’t happening just a couple of states away.  Yes, injustice happens daily…hourly even.  But it’s clear this issue goes beyond injustice, and it’s time to say something.

Perhaps that’s the whole point of these sentences, dear reader.  Simply speaking up and saying in my own way, “Enough is enough.”

But who am I?  A small-town raised blondie with blue eyes.  As with the piece I wrote about the Pulse massacre, I again feel very incompetent to say anything at all.

However, I know injustice when I see it.  Shooting an already tased black man, point blank and multiple times-because “he had a gun in his pocket,” is outrageous.

Now, I have close friends and family who are first responders, risking their own lives for the safety of the community.  My intention is never to offend or look down upon a certain group of people, whether professionally, racially, economically, etc.

But what these police officers did…it’s unthinkable.  And yet it happened.  Again.

At the risk of ruffling feathers, I couldn’t sit back and just post another cute picture of my dog, or a yoga pose, or even a scripture filled devotional-which is actually what I intended to write to you tonight.  I just couldn’t.

And so I wonder…

Say I was the one selling CD’s outside of a convenient store-at night.  I would most certainly be exercising my right to protect myself.  And say the police officers responded to a 911 call about “an armed woman.”  Say they show up and see me standing there.  Would I have been assumed to be the woman in question and thrown over the hood of a car?  Would I have been tased until I helplessly fell to the ground?  Say the policeman felt the gun in my pocket, where it was safely hidden.  Would I still be sitting here today?  Or would bullets have pierced my heart until it was no longer beating….my lungs until they were no longer breathing?

Some say this isn’t a racial issue.  Some say this is yet another example of why our country needs better gun control.

All I can say is, “Jesus come.”