Positive stories are too far and few between lately in the mainstream media, particularly on the topic of race relations. But if you tuned in to CBS Evening News Friday night, you would’ve been blessed to hear about the kind of story that likely happens often but is still an important reminder of our shared humanity.
“On the Road” correspondent Steve Hartman reported on an incident that happened just last month in Pennsylvania, where a black bystander saved a white police officer after the officer’s car crashed. Daylan McLee courageously pulled Jay Hanley out of his car as it was about to be engulfed in flames. Even more remarkable was the fact that McLee had spent a year in prison awaiting charges after being wrongfully accused. As Hartman put it:
STEVE HARTMAN: Who can blame Daylan McLee for hating the police? He was falsely accused of pointing a gun at an officer, spent a year in jail before a jury finally acquitted him. Not to mention the countless traffic stops.
Despite his admitted “animosity” towards police, McLee rushed to help when he saw Officer Hanley trapped in his car and flames spreading to the cabin. An emotional Hanley was grateful for McLee's kind and selfless act: "It's amazing when there's true love in people and they can get you out of something like that, no matter who you are or where you come from. There should be more people like that."
As the pair warmly reunited and Hanley's wife hugged McLee, CBS's Hartman remarked, “And certainly, if there were more people like that, there'd be more moments like this.”
CBS then played footage of anti-cop signs at Black Lives Matter protests, while Hartman noted, “In times of rage, we often paint groups with a broad brush. But Daylan says at some point you have to go back and fill in lines between good and bad because in that subtlety lies our humanity.”
McLee shared how this country, and the world, would be a better place if we didn’t focus so much on each other’s race:
DAYLAN MCLEE: I want people to start to look at everybody as Americans and not, he's white, he's black, he's Asian. We're people, and when we start realizing that, things should get better.
In the middle of a movement to defund the police, encouraged by the media, it’s easy to forget that most Americans aren’t as hateful as the media presents us to be.
At the end of this heartwarming story, fill-in anchor Margaret Brennan noted, “We need more stories like that.” I think most people would agree. So why does Brennan’s network routinely spend their morning hours instead, bringing on race-baiting, radical activists who want to tear apart this country?
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