Protest is telling the truth in public. Sometimes protest is telling the truth to a public that isn’t quite ready to hear it. Protest is, in its own way, a storytelling. We use our bodies, our words, our art, and our sounds both to tell the truth about the pain that we endure and to demand the justice that we know is possible. It is meant to build and to force a response.

There’s a double standard to protest in America. Something is different for black people who should dare to ask questions, and further, for those who protest in blackness. Protest in and by black bodies is never deemed legitimate, never deemed worthy of engagement. It seems that we have simply have not earned our grievance, our grievance is illegitimate – we do not deserve sympathy or, ultimately, justice.

The theory of policing is quite far from the reality of policing. For us, at least, that is.

As Jason Mogus has written, organizing is the act of building power; mobilizing is the act of spending the power you’ve built.

In fighting to help this country, this world. To be one that is worthy of the beauty of your life, you will undoubtedly experience pain – the normal pain of life and the pain of struggle. But pain is not who you are. You are, and have always been, more than your pain.