A Word On: Waiting

Jacob Ginsberg-Margo, Opinion Editor

Waiting is hard. If it wasn’t, patience couldn’t be a virtue. We, as a society can not wait. We want everything faster. Faster food, Faster internet, Faster lives. But should we wait? Why spend your time flipping through a one thousand page book of pressed wood pulp and ink to find a word, when it could’ve taken you less than a few seconds on the internet?

There is no doubt that the internet is the greatest human invention besides electricity and the wheel, and even those are arguable. Along with the internet, swift information, and quicker news is a side-effect of it. Yet, what is the point if we use it in a way that is detrimental to our mental maturity.

As an example let’s look at the case of Jussie Smollett. An actor on the popular show Empire, Mr. Smollett, a gay, black man, reported a awful hate crime, claiming that two men in “MAGA” hats and ski masks, attacked him. He claimed that they threw a noose over his neck and covered him in bleach. From the beginning, people who were viewing the story from an objective perspective started to notice places where the story didn’t make sense, but I won’t go over them here. Lo and behold, it turned out to be a hoax.

The issue wouldn’t be some mediocre actor claiming something bad happened to him on the streets of Chicago, it’s the fact that the mainstream media started broadcasting before the facts were confirmed. Rep. Kamala Harris, a candidate for the 2020 democratic nomination and presidency, called this a “modern day lynching,” and Rep. Cory Booker parroted these thoughts. The mainstream media jumped on this story, fervently attacking the alleged attackers. When it became known that the alleged attackers were two Nigerian brothers, and that they were hired by Mr. Smollett, evidently to fake a hate crime, in an effort for fame and eventual fortune, those who rose to virtue signal to the communities Mr. Smollett represented, the black and gay communities respectively, fell silent.

This entire embarrassing situation could have been avoided if, and only if, the national news media personalities, would have waited for the real facts, and evidence of the ongoing investigation to finish.

This is why you should wait. Those who doubted and respectively questioned turned out to be right. Those who held their tongues and thought just a minute longer were able to see clearer, and did not have to back peddle from their emotional statements that were made in the name of a false reality. If we were to just wait, to listen and then pass judgement then, only then can we actually see what has been in front of us the entire time.

Have a good week.