It was a Tuesday night when I, along with the rest of America, discovered that yet another white police officer would go unpunished for taking a black life – this time, in Ferguson, Missouri, The night after, the universe delivered onto me the news about a Mississippi judge ruling the state’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

As someone who holds both of these issues very close to my heart, I went through and am still going through a great deal of emotional confusion. On one hand I was incredibly sad and angry, the other elated and hopeful.

What exacerbated this confusion was that I was experiencing these feelings in Brookhaven.

I grew up in Wesson frequently visiting Brookhaven for school, work and any semblance of a social life. I know and understand the temptation of sidling up next to a friend, aunt, cousin or barber and hearing about the news of the day.

Not your local news that reporters write about everyday in the paper but scandalous news. The kind that makes you whisper even though you and the sharer are the only two within a five-mile radius. I remember straining my neck to hear whose cousin got a new car or who got fired from that new job.

However, I did notice growing up that there were things Brookhavenites did not so extensively talk about. Such topics included deep but riveting discussions on race, edge-of-your-seat conversations about sexuality or critical yet constructive debates about religion.

These are topics I’ve always been interested in since attending school at Enterprise Attendance Center but didn’t find the confidence or voice to talk about until my years at the University of Mississippi (I do not call the university by its more common name as I find that its origins and meaning are both derogatory and disrespectful to the history of a great many people).

Still today I find it difficult to find thought-provoking conversations about race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. in my hometown. I’ve found that conversations around these matters where we question our surroundings, assumptions and beliefs are essential to reaching a deeper level of knowing. Racism starts to stop in its tracks, sexism and misogyny are left by the wayside, homophobic and transphobic beliefs are disproved, and xenophobic – the fear of foreign people, ideas and things – ideas become a thing of the past.

We need conversations like these in Brookhaven and Lincoln County. We need to have these conversations with our peers, our children and ourselves.

The conversations are usually born from questions arising from our social observations. Why when I go to an event in Brookhaven am I one of very few if not the only black person there – according to the 2010 census Brookhaven has a majority black population at 54.1%? Where is the rich black history I know Brookhaven has but is somehow hidden and have been reduced down to fascinating but limited information about Alexander High School? Is it safe for lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans individuals to live openly as who they are even though Brookhaven was named – by Movoto Real Estate in June 2014 – one of the top 10 safest places in the state? Is abstinence-only sex education really the best and only way to stop teen pregnancy?

These and many more questions we should be asking ourselves on a daily basis. With the ongoing and long-overdue protests filling our streets and television screens, there are a few questions we should all be asking ourselves when we’re walking down the street and encounter someone who doesn’t look, dress or act like we do. What am I assuming about this person? Are those assumptions valid? How do these assumptions shape my perception and attitude of this person and the group they may or may not belong to?

Maybe if Darren Wilson and the countless white holders of authority would ask themselves these questions the black community wouldn’t carry with us a list disrespectfully long filled with names of people, young and old, who’ve been beaten or murdered by the un-cuffed hands of white officers of this nation.