Apparently America is going to hell.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe this country is “going to hell in a hand basket” and 61 percent are not hopeful about he direction of this nation, according to a poll conducted by Fox News in October.

The other 42 percent believe America is going to hell in a Prius (just kidding).

First off, referencing Fox News as a journalist is about as comfortable as meeting your girlfriend’s father for the first time.

Second, since when exactly was America going to heaven?

With our history of slavery, Trail of Tears, internment camps, hating on immigrants, lack of women’s rights issues and many other problems, why now are the issues America has going to send us to hell?

I actually still yell “free Sacco and Vanzetti” whenever I hop on the track to spit some rhymes.

Saturday, thousands of people gathered in Selma to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

This was a reminder of America’s bruised ­­­— past ­­­­­­­­­­­­more bruised than Rocky Balboa’s face after every fight — and also how much more work we all need to do to help race relations.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge got me thinking, and thinking is actually what I tried to give up for Lent.

If I had been born several decades earlier I never would have been able to meet one of my best friends in third grade, graduate together, go to UNA and be the best rap duo since Outkast.

And in the same time frame to think the U.S. would elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama II would be as unthinkable as a Shakira album that is not amazingly awesome.

Believe it or not, America has come a long way as far as doing the right thing. But there is still more work to do.

One can just look at Ferguson, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin to see we have to do better.

But to think America was goody-two-shoes before and is now destined to hell is ludicrous.

So let us strap up our boots (or in my case tie up my Kobe’s) and keep working toward treating people better regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation or if they are a fan of the Pittsburg Steelers. (Go Ravens!)

I love America so I want America to love everybody, too.

In the words of the great Jackie Moon: “E-L-E, everybody love everybody.”