Around the world, people are trying to flee their homes. They leave for various reasons: war, love, opportunity, peace of mind, sanctuary.

As for me, I’ve always loved where I come from. The people. The beauty of the land. The proximity to family. The environment for my kids. And heck, being able to reach many major cities in less than eight hours is dope for someone who loves road trips.

People ask, “Where you from?”

I say, “Lexington, Kentucky.”

They usually follow with, “You’ve been there your whole life?”

I say, “Yep.” And it’s always followed by a look I can’t quite read. I don’t know if they’re thinking, Why would you stay there? or You don’t seem like a Kentucky man.

I’m not sure, but most new people I meet do it. I guess folks already have feelings one way or the other about Lexington—whether from experience or from stereotypes about Kentucky.

Sidebar: My cousin’s wife, upon visiting Kentucky, said she’d expected chickens on the runway at the airport and folks in overalls with no shoes. Granted, this was in the early 2000s. But I digress.

See, no matter where you’re from, there are some people trying to get in and others trying to get out.

Which brings me to what I saw transpire this week.

I watched the video of a woman protesting in the middle of the road in her vehicle, in front of ICE agents. The situation escalated and ended with that woman shot dead by an ICE agent.

I’m not going to get into the political aspect, because I can’t stand politics. But I will speak from a justice standpoint. The ICE agent should not have shot her. I watched the video several times. The woman was trying to drive away from them—not hit the man who shot her. I’ve seen people trying to make it seem like a noble act, but it was just plain wrong. Period.

The death and use of violence was the worst thing about the incident. But the second worst was the cheerleading I saw on the internet. It was hurting my stomach. I couldn’t believe people were cheering for an agent to shoot a civilian point-blank, when he was clearly out of the way of the vehicle.

If she was going to hit him, she would have hit him.

Yet both sides of the aisle are on social media using it for their political interests. They don’t care about what happened—only how it can be used to galvanize their base.

I was furious and sad all at the same time. What are we becoming?

In another incident, I saw a grandmother watching a video of two young men mocking the death of her teenage grandson, holding up guns to his memorial flyer. Sheer ridiculousness. It has become cool to take a life and gloat about it.

This happened in my hometown. Lexington, Kentucky. My home.

I feel like we are regressing as humans. Back to times of barbarians and savages.

We are more connected through technology but really too far apart. These platforms seem to have taken the soul from a lot of people. When you can hide behind a keyboard and be anonymous, you can spew as much hatred and evil as you want. And because it goes unchecked, you slowly begin to decay into something less than human.

Humanity has always been communal. God even said it’s not good for man to be alone. My pastor used to say, “No man is an island.” But increasingly, we are becoming more isolated. Most people don’t know their next-door neighbor. They hardly know the people on their floor.

This country is falling deeper and deeper into a dystopian state of mind.

My Home—my sweet, sweet Home here in these United States—is beginning to lose its sweetness.

I’ve been blessed to travel the world. I’ve been on every major continent except two: South America and Australia. I’ve met some amazing people out there. Their spirits don’t feel shackled by the chains of political partisanship. Yes, they have problems, but in many of the places I’ve been, the people seem far more connected to their family, their tribe, their Home.

I’m losing my connection. My heart and mind hurt to think about how we seem to be falling into a pit of supreme patriotism. So many of the people who say they voted on faith and for God are the same people I saw openly cheering for the death of a protesting young woman at the hands of a masked federal agent.

It’s mind-boggling.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! — Isaiah 5:20

The most ironic thing about the ICE situation is that ICE was formed to stop immigrants from living in our country illegally.

They are a special, violent police force assembled to get undocumented people out from beyond our borders. They hunt down people—many of whom did whatever they could to come to this country. So much so that they’re willing to risk being detained, separated from their families, and now, apparently, even shot. Just to have a chance to come to this country.

They put everything on the line for this country.

They are clearly willing to die to be here.

And me? The natural-born citizen? I’m probably going to leave my Home.

Not because I would die to go somewhere else—but because some of our citizens are happy to kill the ones who just want to take my place.