We’re finally one month away from the end of 2016 and only one week away from the end of the semester. Thank God.
I don’t think I’m alone in saying 2016 was an actual dumpster fire with burning garbage flying out of it. We began with a gorilla dying and ended with a guerilla dying, and somewhere along the way we managed to elect Donald Trump president.
In the University and Baton Rouge communities, we experienced historic flooding, the shooting of Alton Sterling by a police officer, the death of Mike the Tiger, the firing of Les Miles and the death of three Baton Rouge police officers. We’ve been through too much as a school, city, state and country.
So, a new year, and possibly a new era, is approaching. I’m only 20 years old, but it feels like I’ve been through more in 2016 than I have in the last 19 years combined. With everything that’s happened so far, I’m left with the question that I’m sure everyone has asked themselves at least once this year: Where do we go from here?
Do we protest white nationalism becoming the new norm? Do we retreat to our own bubbles and further fragment ourselves into echo chambers? Do we blame the mainstream media for desensitizing us to these tragedies?
I wish I had the answers. I really do. But I don’t know how to correctly handle this year. I don’t know what to do when we can’t even turn to our local community to forget tragedies because we’re also suffering.
I don’t know the proper way to react to everything that’s happened so far. I’ll leave that to other people to figure out. However, I do know that I don’t want 2017 to be like 2016.
Regardless of who is president, we have to show empathy from now on. We have to give back to our community in a positive way.
Above all, we need to expect nothing less than human rights for all. We can’t treat some groups as our peers while oppressing other groups, and we can’t serve our own self interests without thinking of their implications on others.
In 2017, speak out against injustice, but also take measures to prevent injustice in the first place. None of us want children to go hungry, but how many of us actually volunteer and donate to organizations that prevent child hunger? I know I haven’t.
We can’t prevent injustice on the macro level, but we can do as much as possible to help people on the micro level.
Cody Sibley is a 20-year-old mass communication junior from Opelousas, Louisiana.
Near Campus Drive the lakes flood all nearby sidewalks on Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016, around LSU campus.
