When studying the history of the world, war is one of the most impactful things on societies and cultures. War still continues to go on today in the world, but do we go to war for the same reasons as we used to? Do we even view war the same as we did a few hundred years ago? One of the main things that change the way that we view war is the entertainment industry. From video games to movies, the seriousness about war has changed into something enjoyable to play or to watch.

One example the ways images of war are packages of entertainment is the games in the  Call of Duty series which allows you to play online with others. When playing the game, the things that are visible on the screen is a gun in your hand, a scoreboard of how many kills each team has on the right-hand side, and a timer, and the environment. There are different game modes in the game, but I will be talking about Team Deathmatch. The name alone shows how we see death as entertainment. The goal of the game mode is for one of the teams to reach a certain kill score, usually 75 kills, before the other team does within the time limit. The first team that reaches that score wins the game. Everyone's objective in the game is to get as many kills as possible, while also dying as little as possible. After each game, your character gains xp, which is experience points, from the match and more game currency, which allows them to rank up in the game and buy gear. The higher your rank, the more and better weapons and gear you can obtain with the game currency. Colors and designs on guns and armor also become unlocked with rank or the number of kills or headshots you have obtained. There is a Ted Talk by Peter Mantello which speaks on a similar topic, in which he said, “So the more you kill, the richer you become. The richer you become, the more weapons you can buy. The more weapons you can buy, the more powerful you can become.” There is no point in time where the game makes you question the killing of other people. The objective is very clear, kill. In order to stay alive, kill. In order to look and be cooler, kill more. Another game that is like this is Fortnite, which is currently still one of the biggest games out there right now. It is a battle royale game where you can play with a team or by yourself in order to kill everyone and be the last man standing. The more you level up in the game, the more things you unlock. What’s interesting about this is that when I use to play Fortnite, I questioned the whole idea of the game, which is having people skydive from hot air balloon school bus and search for weapons scattered in the world in order to kill each other. But interestingly enough, I continued to play the game. Even after looking at the game from the outside for a short period of time, I continued playing it. What I liked about the game was the costumes, the dances, the objects. The way you were able to play the game with your friends and compete against people online, and I liked it just because it was popular and I wanted to have fun just like everyone else. That’s what kept me hooked.

What people don’t realize is that the concept of these games may have a deeper meaning than simply playing with your friends and having a good time. I don’t want to bash the games completely, because I’m sure that the creators didn’t have any bad intentions when making these games (I hope), but when you think about a simulation where you put a group of humans in an environment just to slay and kill each other, that’s kind of brutal and downright savage. Is that really something we want our youth playing? For the people that are going to defend video games like this, I understand that a lot of people have the common sense not to do anything of these horrific things in real life, but what about the people that don’t? At a young age, children absorb and mimic a lot of things they see and hear. Knowing this trait of children, there is a good possibility that video games like Fortnite and Call of Duty can be the kickstart for violence in their future. Parents need to make sure that their child understands that they should never do any of the things they do in the video game in real life, or just not allowed their kid to play the game at all.

Video games were made for entertainment, and games like Call of Duty and Fortnite can be fun. But people need to be aware of the hidden symbols and meaning in video games that involves war. We cannot allow ourselves to be negatively influenced by these games and allow them to change the seriousness of war.

Poverty In America:

Rates of violent crime in the United States have declined significantly over the past two decades, but disparities persist. Violence is still a recurring issue we face in our society. Many of the crimes that occur tend to happen in an area that is socio-economically disadvantaged. It could be said that violence is associated with poverty. The rate of poverty has been linked to the rate of violence in many ways. There is a correlation between violent crimes and poverty because of the unemployment rates in major cities, the culture of poor areas, and the list continues. There are many examples of poverty that can contribute to this violence yet there is still a debate as to which factor are the most significant. There will always be a crime, but urban crime tends to always be located in high poverty areas.

Violence can be described as behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. Since we have cleared the meaning of violence we can see how this can be easily related to poverty. If people are violent, it’s usually because they are poor, because when you are poor, your opportunities to escape poverty are limited.  When you are faced with the lack of funds to pay rent, buy groceries for your family, or you yourself. You're faced with a decision. Due to the circumstances, you want to find a way to provide. This usually means turning to crime, and more often than not this usually means selling drugs. The chart below shows the types of crimes based on annual income.

In each category, the people that fall into the category of 15,000 or less were more likely to be victims. They took the lead dramatically in each category. This example proves the point that they are more likely to experience this thing because they more exposed to this rather those who make 75,000 or more annually.  Persons in poor households at or below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) (39.8 per 1,000) had more than double the rate of violent victimization as persons in high-income households (16.9 per 1,000). This not because they choose this but this. this is the life they were born into. It could be said that people use this as an outlet. individuals living in poverty see the benefits of committing a crime to meet their basic needs is worth the risk of getting caught

There is a counter agreement. People with higher income also experience violence. Just at a different level. They experience less of crime because there was more focus placed on this social class. In an article about the crime rate in America it states “when someone receives more education, they are less likely to commit a crime” this brings us back to the cycle that has been created. They placed people in these social class and provide them with little resources and still expect them to rise above it. Leading them to decide how to make ends meet, therefore, turning to crime. In higher income housing this is more of an emphasis on education rather than a lower income neighbor and that plays a huge factor. A neighborhood starts to get a reputation all because they were neglected from the beginning.

In Donald Trump’s run for president, he makes many speeches giving his opinion. In one speech he talks about future plans when he becomes president. In this speech, he talks about tactics he has planned for the next four years. He specifically talks about addressing violent crime and poverty. he states that his administration would be more than willing to pour resources into battling both crime and poverty. He then continues to say “But to break the cycle of poverty, we must also break the cycle of violence.” (Donald J. Trump’s, 2017) when he says this it is almost as if he is blaming them when he creates this relation between the two things he says that there is one because of another. Which is true but it seems as though he is not willing to help us he address both our hand and hand which I don't think would be perfect. If in fact, the two go hand and why would you not want to help the poverty rate in America so that the crime rate in America would go down as well. If you know that they consider why not take the initiative to fix this. Instead if just stating the problem that is at hand, do something about it.  

To end, when we have this poverty vs. violence debate there is always room for other opinions. There will always be bias against lower-income neighborhoods due to their relationship and thus the reason why the cycle continues. Individuals living in poverty see the benefits of committing a crime to meet their basic needs is worth the risk of getting caught. Violence can occur in both high and low-income housing it is just more publicized in the lower. They do not go hand and hand but instead one leads to another. Faced with signs of poverty this leading you to commit violent crimes. This does not mean that the person is violent.

They are Human To

During the summer of 2002, the army base at Fort Bragg's was under fire. Four soldiers had killed their wives and two of them had ended their own lives. Everyone was in a frenzy to point fingers and find the culprit behind all four murders; what had caused these soldiers to kill their wives in cold blood? What has caused them to snap? There have been many experiments done on soldiers, marines, and those that serve in the military to see the effects that boot camp and just being in the military in general has on them mentally. Most times they come to the conclusion that nothing really changes other than their anxiety levels, however, how do we explain four murders from four soldiers who had experienced war first hand, who had been to Afghanistan, who had gone to boot camp? Now the question at hand is, how does the military, and more specifically, boot camp, affect those mentally?

When recruits enlist into any of the following five branches: army, navy, coast guard, air force or marine corps, they are forced to attend boot camp for eight weeks. During these eight weeks they are put through rigorous training, meant to break them down and dehumanize them. In an article written by the University of Washington, the author quotes Joshua J. Jackson, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences. He conducted a study on the behavior of soldiers and found that for soldiers, “from the moment you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night, someone is actively working to break down anything that’s individual about you and to build up something else in its place” (Gerry Everding  February 9, 2012). Imagine someone actively working to break your very essence, what makes you human and replace it with something else, a killing machine. This would be more than enough to cause someone to snap, making them perhaps kill their wife.

Now, when wondering what goes on inside actual boot camp a research article written by Sage Journals, breaks down what happened and what they found inside a boot camp, recounting stories of, “cadence calls ranging from sexist to sexually aggressive to misogynistic were heard shouted by troops in formations. The rationale for training soldiers in this manner is the belief that young male soldiers will be trained to desire combat instead of fear it. When used in an environment that tolerates sexism, the tactic can also teach soldiers to link sexual aggression and violence with the denigration of women.” (April 1, 2003).  In boot camp like these, they are training their men to crave the violence, exploiting their masculinity and forcing them to associate aggression and this desire for violence to the abuse and degradation of women. The first few weeks they’re given a taste of the cruelest and hardest part of the military experience and it only gets worse from there.

In camps where it is only men, often times their masculinity trait is exploited to the maximum. They are being trained to become something else, to obey when given a command. I had the opportunity to talk to an active member of the marine corps to get more of a first-person insight into the realities of boot camp. This marine shared with me things that he witnessed and lived through when he was in boot camp and even now on base. When we were talking about bootcamp and his experience during his first eight weeks he described them “ mentally and physically exhausting ,” he told me about things that had endured throughout the entire process “ the first three days they didn’t allow us to sleep. Once we hit the third day some of us started hallucinating. I fell asleep walking once.” He talked about activities that they would be forced to do, “The officers would force us to fight each other, I watched multiple people get their heads slammed on the floor.” When hearing these things my mind immediately went to how prisoners are treated. Like a prisoner, the effects of what they experience and live through is often reflected after they leave the military. In a article written by the University of Washington, the author quotes Joshua J. Jackson, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, on the effects that life after militarism has on them, saying, “men who have experienced military service tend to score lower than civilian counterparts on measures of agreeableness.” This saying that after they leave the military and return to being a regular civilian their character is not the same. They can have a hard time making connections people or maintaining relationships and even obtaining jobs or positions within. This can lead to higher anxiety levels and mild levels of depression setting in. This is a sad fact, for many veterans this is the route that their life took and have not been able to make better.

A human is not conditioned to live under these situations and certainly can not function properly if they are malnourished and tired; they are weak. They are stripping their soldier, marines, sailors, and airmen of their identity, what makes them human, through actual physical torture and then they are just leaving the shell behind, a simple body. Then, after they are done with them they throw them back into society and expect them to go right back to their normal life after all the trauma they have endured. We need to realize that they are humans, they are not robots, they have emotions, we need to help them and allow their minds to heal. Disorders like PTSD have been linked to soldiers who had been to combat. They are sick and have to be treated as such.

​Introduction:

My goal for this paper is to open people's minds to my idea of how something can be true and fiction at the same time. This should help us understand other people's ideas and the problem as a whole. I'm proud of the deep analysis I wrote for this paper because I feel like I really explored and explained an idea that's not widely thought about. I hope my essay influences you guys to ponder on this idea of truth and fiction.

In the society that we live in, violent situations such as war, is a big controversy topic. Some agree it is needed to end conflict and some disagree because a lot of people lose their life to a bullet or much worse. Not only can violence kill somebody but destroy families. But if you go deeper into it you will come across many ways that it is more bad than good. For example, the person who you were before a war isn't who you are after. This is because they are put through many obstacles that will break that sympathetic human creating someone who is very cold. This can impact families who have to deal with a veteran who is mentally damaged with survivor's guilt or PTSD.

According to a study/article done by Guidhi “My faith in nonviolence” discusses how in many situations the law of love has answered more than the law of destruction. This means that the use of sympathy and communication problems were solved better than ones with violence. Guidhi states = “My daily experience, as of those who are working with me, is that every problem lends itself to solution if we are determined to make the law of truth and nonviolence the law of life. For truth and nonviolence are, to me, faces of the same coin.” In other words, violence cannot occur if situations were solved more consciously instead of quick action. The truth will set you free from many situations. This supports it because if families are more rooted they won't have to deal with a loss or the need of a father/mother figure. A family being rooted and together is very beneficial for many reasons; the kids will be secured and not always having to wonder where and when their Father/ Mother will be back or if they died. It's a lot to deal with at a very young age.  

Now for the people who will be life savers and believe violence is the only way world problems are solved will go into the veterans blindsided. The reason why they are blindsided in my opinion is because they do not know what they are gonna be put through; tests that destroy a individual creating somebody they were never meant to be. It sometimes can be a character trait gone or worse like PTSD or soldier’s guilt. When researching how veterans are affected by warfare I found a source written by  MAGGIE PUNIEWSKA “ Soldiers guilt” discusses what goes through a veterans head and how it may impact a family. “Some of these soldiers describe experiences in which they, or someone close to them, violated their moral code: hurting a civilian who turned out to be unarmed, shooting at a child wearing explosives, or losing trust in a commander who became more concerned with collecting decorative pins than protecting the safety of his troops. Others, she says, are haunted by their own inaction, traumatized by something they witnessed and failed to prevent.” In detail of what Maggie is trying to get across with this statement is majority of the time soldiers who seen situations that couldn't be prevented or their own inaction may trigger soldiers guilt. It may lead to that because they will blame themselves for something to the extent of becoming very depressed and on edge. This connects to my claim on how violence can destroy families because soldiers guilt is something that is connected to PTSD just a bit worse. Since it's similar to PTSD symptoms such as loss of interest or pleasure in activities, guilt, or loneliness. This may take a toll on the children's life because they need to be engaged with their parents to feel and know they are loved and not a burden. Loss in interest can cause a lot of issues in a relationship because they are too damaged to sometimes acknowledge they are still in a relationship.

In conclusion violence has had more of an affect on veterans and families than it has on the main problem`w. Violence affects veteran mental health causing them to feel guilty due to situations they had no control over; PTSD that can lead to suicide. Not only the veterans are impacted due to warfare but their families have to deal with this issue that will restart every single day. What I mean by this is that PTSD is something that need more attention and patience to deal with because the feel as if they are still under attack.  

Sources used:

https://msw.usc.edu/mswusc-blog/veteran-mental-health/

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/healing-a-wounded-sense-of-morality/396770/

Paper Article written by Guidhi  

Introduction:

My goal for writing this paper was to bring up a topic that not many really think of. We don’t realize how much it could be affecting us and this topic is how violent music can be influential to society. I’m proud of the research I found and how it worked really well with what I was trying to get across. Music is such an important part of who we all are as people. It is used for many different aspects of life and knowing that it could be doing no good to society is important to pay attention too.

As humans, we don’t think about how influential music may be in society. Music is a form of art. It is a positive outlet for people and a way for people to express their feelings. These feelings can be good or bad and this is where we need to look deeper. Music can dig deep into someone’s emotional status and can lead to certain thoughts or feelings. Now the question is, is violent music influencing our society? This is important to be mindful of because children and adolescents are so into music nowadays. Hip hop, R&B, and Rap are genres that are so popular and there are the ones that can infiltrate violent messages into society the most. Not knowing what is right in front of you isn’t an option. Music can be a part of the reasons why violence is such a problem to society and why people may act the way they do.

Rap is a creative way to form and pair words together to create a hit. Rap music is what most teens listen to today and rap music can often emphasize the idea of violence. An article by, Nakia Jackson, called What Influence and Effects Does Rap Music Have on Teens Today? talks about different ways Rap music can be effective in positive and negative ways. “Rap was born in poor urban communities where violence may be poorly controlled, but social and economic factors can play a much greater role in the prevalence of violence.” This quote is mainly focusing on the idea of how rap music was already created because of the violence that was spread around into society. As mentioned before, music can be used to express feelings and this quote basically says the area where rap was born was just a way for people to explain what they were facing in their community. Also, how she mentions that social and economic factors take a bigger toll in the society which can be true. Lower class communities are where violence takes place the most because as said in the quote, it is “poorly controlled”. There are bigger issues to be aware of that violent music affecting society, especially where the origins of rap music came from.

Some people may view music as nothing harmless. It isn’t something physical but something that means much more in a emotional, intellectual, and spiritual way. A study was done by researchers from Iowa State University and the Texas Department of Human services. The study was published by the American Psychological Association (APA) and it proved that violent music lyrics increase aggressive thoughts and feelings. This necessarily does not have to do with crimes nor creating violence throughout society. This has to do with the fact about how thoughts and feelings can form negatively within a person, leading to physical action. A person who knows someone in a vulnerable place should take this into consideration. Violent music can cause someone to make choices they will later regret in life and knowing these type of facts can prevent that in the future.

Music can be used as a coping method for those who want an escape from the world. In these times, females can be more driven into letting music affect them negatively than men. An article published by the American Academy of Pediatrics goes into depth about how music and all of its aspects can have an impact on children and adolescents. “Female adolescents are more likely than male adolescents to use music to reflect their emotional state, in particular when feeling lonely or “down.” This proves females are more likely to lean on music in their rough times because of their emotional status. As we look at adolescents, it is more important to pay more attention to them since they are still trying to figure themselves out. At times they might feel like no one is truly there for them because they are going through the changes of life and becoming adults. They might feel like music is the only way to uplift them and sometimes even bring out the worst in them.

As a society, we should begin to realize what is right in front of our faces. Certain genres are what bring this trait to music and music artist should see that it won’t always do good for the society. They probably aren’t aware of what they are actually doing to their community. Most violent music is songs about the struggle and the horrible things they had to do to survive. If we don’t want our people to be under the impression then a change has to be made. Science and the Medicine field are giving out proven facts as well. We don’t want our children and adolescents to be mistaken that some of these actions are okay by the music they are listening to. Creators, listeners, viewers, and bystanders need to step in and see violent music does have an impact on society.

War before and after

War doesn’t just come with victory and loss. War comes with a lot of consequences that are permanent in some people's lives, such as, PTSD, destruction, tons of money lost, etc..Civilians that live before war live their life peacefully and in harmony. When a war hits they can’t anticipate what might happen next. War affects a person in a lot of different ways before and after.

One country that has one of the highest rates of mental illness in the world is, Palestine. A quarter of Palestinian adolescents have attempted suicide. About 23.2% have post-traumatic stress disorder (according to a survey of 1,369 over three years) compared to around 6-9% in the US; and the Palestinian territories have by far the highest levels of depression in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Those living in Palestine endure ongoing trauma. Someone who has their house demolished by the Israeli government in East Jerusalem, because it was deemed illegal, must then pay fines to the Israeli government for failing to destroy their homes themselves. (Nearly every Palestinian building is deemed illegal by Israeli authorities.) Up to 40% of Palestinian men have spent time in prison, often for minor offenses such as throwing stones. And many families face the threat of Israeli-army raids and interrogations. All this happens within and out of war. In Palestine there is no, war has ended, war in Palestine is continuous.

Before soldiers go into a war zone, they are healthy. Their lungs are healthy and clear, their minds are stuck only on the mission at hand. When soldiers come back from a warzone or war in general, they have to face things that can not jus go away. They face PTSD, depression, and suicide.

In the film, “American Sniper”, actor Bradley Cooper plays a soldier who goes on 4 tours  in Iraq. Throughout the whole movie Cooper experiences traumatic things such as, shooting a young boy, seeing his partner get shot in the face, and having to watch a brutal man drill into a little boys legs. In a certain scene in this movie, Cooper is at a garage and he starts to start experiencing deja vu from the tools the mechanics use. This film shows how soldiers going in and out of war zones start to slowly but surely have a messed up mentality.

From two perspectives: A soldier going into a warzone and a little boy facing soldiers with guns bigger than himself. The soldier going into a warzone has the mindset of going in and never coming back out, but for those who do come out of a warzone alive they suffer from the mental illnesses discussed before, the most common being PTSD. The little boy facing soldiers has the mindset of praying enough to live or knows well enough that death is coming his way, he will never understand why. The little boy if survived automatically is traumatized, depending on the case he may have lost family, friends, and loved ones.

The conditions after war are inevitable. Buildings are destroyed leaving hundreds of families homeless. Families that are just bystanders in the war are forced to face the consequences brought to them. As an example Palestine is one of many countries that faces this tragedy almost everyday. Some say its a free jail. War affects a person in a lot of different ways before and after. It brings, pain, depression, suicide, PTSD, and a lot more. War is forever inevitable to humans.

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/reel-therapy/201501/american-sniper-0

https://qz.com/1521806/palestines-head-of-mental-health-services-says-ptsd-is-a-western-concept/

As children grow up, especially now in the age of technology they are exposed to a lot of information. While a lot of the media can help with their development and education, there is too much that is promoted on social media that can negatively affect a child and shape their mindset as they grow up. Social media and the internet is one of the first places that many children first encounter violence, just by tapping through videos on YouTube, or scrolling through an Instagram feed, violence is ingrained in most aspects of American life. Children who are exposed to violence through social media at a young age are very early desensitized and normalize violence making them less likely to interfere or stop violent acts as an adult.

In an article called “Does Social Media Induce Violence Among Youth”, by Shreesha Ghosh, she writes on the effect that exposure to social media has on children. The articles speaks on how social media is part of our everyday life and that it can’t be avoided. Yet, violence is embedded into our media and can have many effects on children, from violent behavior, increased feelings of hostility, and  antisocial behavior just as some of the few examples. In the article she quotes a paper by Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center at the University of Michigan that reads “Meta-analyses of the unhealthy effects of media-violence have shown that youth who view media-violence on a regular basis are more likely to exhibit... acceptance of violent behavior…  and desensitization toward violent behavior,” The society that we live in depicts violence so frequently that children create a “desensitization toward violent behavior”, this means that they begin the process of normalizing violence at a very young age, which can impede many other aspects of their life as they grow up. One of the the aspects that it can affect is feeling sympathy for victims of violent crimes such as bullying and abuse. This means they are less likely to try and stop a violent act when they see one, they would be “accepting violent behavior” because it’s something that they see everyday.

This normalization of violence from young children then creates what is known as the “Bystander Effect”.  The bystander effect as explained by an article titled “Understanding the Bystander Effect”, writer Kendra Cherry writes “The term bystander effect refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present, the less likely people are to help a person in distress.” She then begin to explain why the effect is so common amongst people. The first reason is people feel a diffusion of responsibility when there are many other people around and a violent crime is taking place because everyone expects someone else to make the call. The second reason Cherry explains, “The second reason is the need to behave in correct and socially acceptable ways. When other observers fail to react, individuals often take this as a signal that a response is not needed or not appropriate.” which leads back to the normalization of violence. When there is a large group of people and they all are witness to a violent act they do not react because they are waiting for someone else to tell them “this is wrong”. The problem is that no one can make the call because they see this act as unalarming; they feel like they have seen it too many times on social media to care. If a fight were to break out in front of a group of people more likely than not most people would just walk by; they would go about their day because no one else is taking action. No one is taking action because they see fights on social media and believe that it is a normal occurrence in their day. The bystander effect works hand in hand with the desensitization of violence that is developed as a child.

In a TED talk Philip Zimbardo tries to explain how people are able to commit these horrible acts and why people do not report or try to say anything about the situation. He says that when we are children we are not raised to interfere with things that seem unjust if they have nothing to do with us. He tells the audience “Most people are guilty of the evil of inaction, because your mother said, "Don't get involved. Mind your own business." from a young age children are told “mind your own business”, that is feeding into the role of being a bystander, now when children see violence on the media then are told that they should mind their own business, it makes sense to why no one seems to stand up and why most violent acts go unreported. The mix of being desensitized and then being told that it’s not your problem or issue, is the reason that so many adults now have a hard time knowing what needs to be done during acts of violence. Our society and media have made people grow up on the idea that not saying anything is better than intervening and that violence is a normal act. To combat this idea Zimbardo continued to say “Heroism as the antidote to evil, by promoting the heroic imagination, especially in our kids, in our educational system. We want kids to think, "I'm a hero in waiting, waiting for the right situation to come along, and I will act heroically,”. The same way that children are taught not to interfere and not to do anything, they need to be taught that they are capable of stopping any act of violence that they see, that they need to report and they need to help.

The only way to teach a child that violence is not normal is by teaching them the same way they first learned it; by putting more positive videos and censoring part of the violence then children will grow up knowing what is not okay. This will then translate to the way that the act as adults. If they are raised to learn how not to be a bystander then there will be less cases where violence goes unreported.

The enslavement of African-Americans ended in 1865 with the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, but the violence brought on that group persists to this day. With the knowledge that the only reason that so many African Americans are in America today is that their ancestors were sold as objects still brings tension between citizens today. The freedom of enslaved people didn’t mean immediate equal treatment. The era of reconstruction and Jim Crow followed and began with hate groups such as the KKK emerged, spreading the belief of white supremacy. There are people still alive today who have been affected by the civil rights era; the segregation of white and black people has left scars in this country. The internalized frustration of being dehumanized and treated as less than for so long still exists in the minds of individuals. These frustrations in the past have led to extremist groups. The way the government has mistreated black people has led to a country in which the violence and an internal war within the US.

In 1972, a Philadelphia-based black liberation group called MOVE was formed by John Africa. He and his followers all took on the surname Africa; the deeply religious black nationalist group was involved in many violent occurrences in the city of Philadelphia. Their name derived from a quote from the founder, “Everything that’s alive moves. If it didn’t it would be stagnant, dead.” This belief has brought the group to remain active even today. The war between the Philadelphia police and MOVE began during a shoot out in [] leaving [] officers dead and left nine of the members convicted of murder. These members were sentenced to 100 years in prison and denied parole in 2008. The group relocated to a house in West Philadelphia where the end of the war would occur. In 1985, Wilson Goode, the first black mayor of Philadelphia would order for “military grade” weapons to be brought upon the MOVE house. The house was hit with two bombs resulting in 11 deaths of members of MOVE including 5 children. Before the bombing, the police were initially trying to arrest the MOVE members, reportedly saying over a loudspeaker, “Attention MOVE: This is America.” The layers of this statement begin brought to mind the 2017 released song This is America, a song whose imagery brings to attention the injustice that has taken place in black communities

The bombing gave Philadelphia a new name: “The City that Bombed Itself.” The escalation perfectly captures the war between the black citizens of America and the government. The group was formed out of frustration of inequality. Through years of mistreatment the black communities will eventually manifest itself with retaliation. When fighting back, MOVE was drastic and refused to play by anyone's rules but their own, and with that brought the coming of the escalation. The bombing burned down homes across the the predominantly black neighborhood, showing that the government of Philadelphia was more concerned about eliminating the denial of their power than black citizen’s lives and wellbeing. They were more concerned with the power they possessed and the threat that MOVE was to that, then the displacement of hundreds of families and the lives of five children.

In the past and even in recent years, the lack of care for black lives the justice system and government of the US has shown has been jarring. This created unrest and violent riots. In 1992, when three Los Angeles cops were acquitted after the assault of Rodney King, infamous riots erupted throughout LA. Another instance of this occurred in 2014, with the death of Michael Brown, which led to unrest in ferguson. Both cases had video evidence of the violence brought upon the people, however the deaths and assaults were seen through a lens of necessary force. The lack of justice brought to the loss of black lives is a direct contradiction with ethics upheld  in US society. When people die, someone is held responsible, and the lack of action to convict shows that black people are viewed as unworthy of justice. The notion that innocent until proven guilty doesn’t seem to apply when a black life is lost.

The internal war of America has been waged on black citizens that haven’t been equally been treated or considered. The way in which black life is viewed is disposable. Until the government and justice system truly sees the average black citizen as equal to every other person, the war will persist. Essentially causing frustration and acts of violence across the US. The government is meant to advocate for all, but have fallen flat when it comes to black communities.