We’ve built a broken world

We are often warned about fake news on social media, but scrolling through Facebook leaves us with one indisputable truth: we’re all too busy shouting our own version of the truth to understand the truths of others.

It has become fashion to argue about whose lives matter. Some insensitive souls even claim all lives matter, which is not only insensitive, but utter nonsense. Because all lives don’t.

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I, for one, don’t matter, as the lovely Snapdragon often points out. Neither does Snapdragon matter. Nor my children.

In fact, very few of us will be missed by more than our mothers if aliens abduct us overnight.

Politicians? Police officers? Metro cops? Will we miss them if zombies catch them this weekend? I, for one, can live without corruption, police brutality or overweight glorified speed cops who demand lunch money from the four-year-old Egg and I at roadblocks.

People who spread Covid-19 conspiracy theories? No. Racists? Don’t need them. Farm murderers? They don’t matter. Neither do teenagers who can’t pull up their jeans or people who end their
Facebook posts with “I’m asking for a friend”.

Of course some people’s lives do matter. Some health workers do good work. As do Bangladeshi cigarette peddlers and Norman at my local petrol station who greets me with a smile every morning.
They make a difference.

But on average, most of humanity is a terrible waste of food and space. We don’t matter because we lack compassion, that one basic ingredient that is vital in making a society where we can all feel safe and cared for.

When a part of our society screams that their lives matter, too, listen and try to understand. Don’t start an argument about whose lives are more important.

Because if you do, you’re a heartless monster.

But don’t ignore the pain of individuals around you just because they are not part of a certain race. Because if you do, you’re just a racist who hides behind a trend.

Don’t fall into the social media trap of rhetoric and syntactic acrobatics. Care and show love where it is needed – in the real world. And who knows, maybe you will matter, too.

Dirk Lotriet.

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