Words can be damaging

Over a week ago a story broke in which a man from Brewton was killed.

The man had gone to a party in Jay and was asked to leave by the person throwing the party.

Police are still investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting, but a Jay man has been charged with one open count of murder and three counts of attempted murder.

The story raised the ire of some as there were media allegations of racism?

Subsequent meetings between Jay and others have addressed those questions and all say they’re confident the event was not racially motivated.

Whatever actually happened, one thing is true, there are now two mothers and families grieving.

One for a son who has now been buried and the other for a child who now sits in jail.

Neither one seems pleasant.

The most distasteful part of all this is how quickly some media members were willing to leap on the possibility of this being race-related. Some were busy pointing in that direction long before the law enforcement could finish its jobs.

Some made this snap judgment because it was Jay, yet earlier this year it wasn’t racial when a man was shot on Jernigan Road.

Murder is murder.

As we move forward, as a society, we must work at slowing down how quickly some jump at this race-related thought.

Achieving this goal will require the effort of everyone, not just a select few who want to do so.

It takes a long time for wounds to heal and the more society picks at it, the longer it will take.

We should not get carried away here. Murder is murder and is always awful. Yet we should remember this is Santa Rosa an area where murder happens every year or so and not every hour.

We’re obviously not an area filled with hate and we should resist the temptation to this so when a murder occurs…even if the media is suggesting it.

It will always be better to wait for law enforcement to investigate and announce what actually  happened rather than what people “think” transpired.