I try and live my life whereby I never deliberately group everyone together or seek to generalize people, but for the most part, as I see it, we live in a nation full of hypocrites.

I truly believe the term hypocrisy is the correct term to use, especially as it relates to those who generally receive an outpouring of support and get sympathy from American citizens and from the mainstream media, and who does not.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a hypocrite is “a person who claims or pretends to have certain beliefs about what’s right but who behaves in way that disagrees with those beliefs.”

All we have to do is look at the overwhelming support and sympathy that has been given to the people of France, who just suffered from a wave of devastating attacks on civilians across Paris last week that left at least 129 people dead, and many more injured.

It was a horrible act, and it was worthy of our overwhelming support and sympathy. I don’t disagree with that or question that.

What I do question, however, is the way many Americans, the mainstream media, city leaders and even Facebook, went out of their way to show that overwhelming support and sympathy, in a way that has not been seen here in America – specifically as it relates to Black victims of domestic terrorism. To me, most Americans are coming across as hypocrites – in a major way.

Facebook went out of their way to proactively create a feature where all of their users can change their profile pictures to add the French flag to their backdrop. There is nothing wrong with that, right? Wrong!

Maybe you didn’t realize that 147 Kenyans were murdered just a few days prior, but we didn’t see Facebook allowing people the opportunity to change their profile picture to reflect the Kenyan flags.

To be honest with you, most Americans probably didn’t even care, including many Black people.

It is sad that the only time you can get collective American sympathy for a group of people, is when their skin is not Black.

Folks have been changing their Facebook profiles like crazy to the French flag, and when the issue surrounding why Facebook hasn’t done the same thing for victims of terrorism in Lebanon, Yemen, Nigeria, Kenya and right here in America, you hear crickets. If you care so much about the loss of life that people have experienced, why won’t you stand up and show the same solidarity and support for those people, whose families have suffered like the French have?

People are quick to accuse people like me of seeking to marginalize this horrific tragedy and let me tell you – I am not! I am simply pointing out the hypocrisy when it comes to people of color.

What did Americans do to show their overwhelming support for the nine Black victims of the South Carolina church shooting?

What did Americans do to show their overwhelming support and disgust with the grand jury that refused to indict the officer who choked Eric Garner while being filmed?

Hypocrites!

You have people, including Black people, who have been changing their profile pictures to the French avatar, and these are some of the same people who dumped water on themselves in support of the ALS Challenge, and who joined the Pray for Police campaign, while blaming the Black Lives Matter movement for Deputy Goforth’s death without even having a motive.

Hypocrites!

Black people have been going through things and catching hell in America for years, so if there is any group of people who need to have an avatar created to allow people to show unconditional support and sympathy, it is Black people.

And it saddens me that some Black people are so quick to support everyone else’s struggle while ignoring their own.

We have to learn how to love ourselves before being able to love others.

Hypocrites!

Then you have Americans talking about they are standing in solidarity with France.

How many of those who profess to stand in solidarity with France, can’t even stand in solidarity with the President of the United States – President Obama?

Hypocrites!

There are many who condemn Muslims, yet say nothing about the Ku Klux Klan, who claims to do what they do under the guise of Christianity.

Hypocrites!

It is time we call out the hypocrisy in this country and deal with it head on. If we don’t, we can just be content with more of the same.

Welcome to The Hypocrisy Games!

Jeffrey L. Boney serves as Associate Editor and is an award-winning journalist for the Houston Forward Times newspaper. Jeffrey is a Next Generation Project Fellow, dynamic, international speaker, experienced entrepreneur, business development strategist and Founder/CEO of the Texas Business Alliance. If you would like to request Jeffrey as a speaker, you can reach him at jboney1@texasbusinessalliance.org.