Watch What You're Reading: Fake News, Foolishness and Spiritual Toxicity

I was meditating the other day because I've been in a funk. My mood was dipping and I needed to check in with myself. During meditation what came to my spirit was to be mindful of what I'm consuming. I've been on social media watching folks get worked up over lies. Look at this Twitter exchange:

Here you have Donald Trump, then so-called Donald Trump Jr. criticizing Obama, then an Obama supporter reacting. After that Obama supporter is an exchange with him and a Trump supporter. Total discord right? I thought it was strange that Trump's son would attack Obama because since Trump and Obama met, the billionaire hasn't been criticizing POTUS. Usually candidates stop attacking former presidents after joining the exclusive POTUS club. Plus, Trump looked like he saw a ghost after his Come-to-Jesus White House meeting with Pres. Obama.

Now take a closer look at Donald Jr.'s Twitter handle. It says @denaldtrumpjr. Denald Trump? I visited his page and saw this:

It says this is just a parody account. People actually thought the person was Trump's son. This user got me for a second. There is so much anger and hatred in our country and a lot of it is due to people reading lies. People are being manipulated. People are consuming what they want to believe. And these creators of fake sites are making tons of money off of our emotions. Even credible sites with click bait headlines that don't have anything to do with the story should share the blame.  It's sick and it makes me angry because it's costing people's lives.

Dylan Roof, that monster who shot up Black church members during prayer at a South Carolina Church was found guilty yesterday for their murders. One of the reasons why he was motivated to kill those people was because of the racist garbage and lies he read online. That's an extreme example but people are being assaulted because of the hateful rhetoric that was unleashed and condoned during this election.

I visit social media sites where content targets the right and the left. The bickering and anger is sad. The hate scares me. What's even more scary is that when the truth is revealed, like U.S. intelligence confirming Russia interfered with the election--many on the right don't want to believe it. And I'm not just targeting the right because there were people on the left who bought into fake news too.

Consuming hateful, bogus content and digesting it into your minds and spirit is not healthy. It's what has caused so much madness in this country.  I've seen a lot of lies and people circulating lies on the internet without checking the sources of information.

Be careful what you read. Read the full article instead of the headline only. Lately I've noticed headlines are there to get clicks and may not even reflect what the article is about. I've even had to contact editors when headlines to my articles were inaccurate and misleading.

Check the source of the information. Don't just go by what someone is sharing online. Make sure you check many sources. Also, you should have more than one news source. I read BBC, Guardian, LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, Fox News, Mother Jones, Ebony, Latina, New America Media, Ms., Bitch, NPR, my local news, etc. I don't get my news from just one place. I don't get my news opinion from just one angle either.

Media is very powerful. Be careful what you read, hear or watch. Denzel will tell you.