2015: The Year of the Protest

Black and blue or white and gold? Though you have probably not heard this question in a while, it is likely you can still remember the sharp divide this query caused in February. After a user on Tumblr posted a picture of a dress with an ambiguous color on the blogging site, social media outlets disintegrated into battle grounds, with advocates of the blue-and-black dress and white-and-gold zealously fighting each other.This could accurately describe 2015.In a year filled with protests, rulings and discoveries of polarizing natures, arguing over the color of stripes on a dress seems trivial, even unproductive. Still,the strong reaction it evoked from social media users was a barometer for this year’s reactions to events with real-world consequences. Consider:Shortly after the New Year, two men thought that a cartoon published in Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical newspaper, was insensitive to Muslims and their religion. Their response was to infiltrate Charlie Hebdo headquarters and murder 12 people.At the end of April and the beginning of May, Freddie Gray died after receiving severe injuries at the hands of police officers. At first, Baltimore residents peacefully protested the unlawful death, but soon the demonstrations devolved into riots in which people looted and burned hundreds of buildings and cars.In July, a conservative group released a video of a Planned Parenthood director seemingly discussing the prices of aborted human fetal tissue. Some members of congress were appalled enough to call for a full investigation and defunding of the female health organization.Not to mention former Secretary of  Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, Germanwings Flight 9525 and the Mizzou protests.The participants in all of these events reacted very strongly to something that unnerved them, just as the online community viralized a blurry image of a dress. Sometimes, their opinions were grounded in perception rather than fact, hindering them from seeing an event’s reality. Rather than finding ways to rectify the scenarios last year brought, they preferred to stay separate and find dissension.People active in last year’s events not only reacted strongly to an issue that upset them, they then acted on their reactions. Most of the time their responses created negative results: the gunmen killed 12 people and terrified a nation, the citizens of Baltimore damaged property amounting in millions of dollars of damage and without Planned Parenthood, impoverished women could not seek the care they needed.In this year, filled with unexpected tragedies and scandals, it would have been wise for those involved to take a step back and think, are my opinions alone a good enough basis on which to place all of my action? Should I do whatever I think is right without exploring other options in which other people’s lives and livelihoods are not affected? Those who preferred to stay blindly divided in fact exacerbated the many problems that arose in the news.However, not every event of last year had a negative impact; after both Paris attacks, the world supported the people of France with prayers, vigils and open expressions of sorrow for the families of those lost. There was no vengeful shooting, no rioting, no defunding. There was human care and forgiveness and the promise to stand by security and justice. This is the proper response to terrible things.And the dress, by the way, is black and blue.