If It Happened There

The other day I stumbled upon a blog entitled "If It Happened There." A journalist for Slate, an online magazine publishing thinkpieces and news, named Joshua Keating started this blog to report current events in America as an American reporting on other countries. In other words, Keating takes the perspective of a journalist from a different country reporting on the happenings of the United States.

After the grand jury indecision in the case of Eric Garner and Daniel Pantaleo, Keating produced a scathing piece at Slate (link at bottom) that showed the level of dysfunction that has come to characterize the United States of America. He begins by referring to the police as "heavily armed security forces," and to the nation itself as a "highly militarized country," both of which are far from hyperbole.

Throughout the rest of the article, Keating points out both how the American public refuse to acknowledge that their home country is not the paradise they like to think it is, and that America has problems on par with those of the rest of the world.

America is a militarized "prison state" just as Keating suggests, with 2.3 million Americans behind bars. It is also "increasingly intolerant to dissent," with protesters being tear gassed and locked up. We, as Americans, tend to dislike this kind of stark language, but as the events of recent weeks have shown, we need to realize that the only way to think about the state of America, and move forward, lies in the sometimes unpleasant truth.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/12/03/eric_garner_grand_jury_how_would_we_cover_the_decision_not_to_indict_a_police.html

http://www.slate.com/topics/i/if_it_happened_there.html