I know that racism, police brutality, and white supremacy is historical, and yet each new killing seems to be more heinous, inexplicable, and horrific than the one before. To think that we have to produce our own cell phone recordings, as we are being killed, in order to be believed is unfathomable.

I refuse to watch anymore videos of black and brown bodies, being removed from the universe. I have enough images to fill 1000 nightmares for the rest of my life.

I am also refusing to do White people’s sociopolitical and socio-emotional work, particularly when the unjust systems maintain its social power because of their acquiescence, slowness to react, and naive complicity. And if there are whites who are actively involved in dismantling these systems, then please double your efforts. I have little tolerance, nor compassion, for accepting all of the non-chalant ways in which state sanctioned violence then becomes affirmed through silence and indifference.

In this dark hour, in my grief and pain, I stand with those who reject these forms of violence. Those who vehemently reject a society that would endorse the point blank shooting of unarmed black and brown people.