Violence...

In history violence has often been the voice of the oppressed and the unheard. I am frustrated, I don’t think burning down your city helps solve anything but I understand. I feel physical pain; like a current of electricity in the air shocking me every single time my son walks out the door. I can hear the seconds between my heartbeat until he walks back in the door.

Telling people to surpress their pain, frustration, or rage doesn’t help. When you say, burning down your city is pointless we hear “shut up and sit down, but don’t kneel because kneeling is disrespectful to the flag.”

When you say what did George do before the filming started, we hear “he deserved to die.”

When you demand to know why we are here or you will call the cops we hear “you don’t belong in this white space, show me your freedom papers.”

Show us you hear our cries.

Show is a verb. A verb is a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence.

SHOW us by charging and convicting when bad cops do bad things

SHOW us by doing real diversity training

SHOW us by making it the norm for police officers to report on the “bad apples”

SHOW us by firing officers who consistently use excessive force

SHOW us by doing psychological evaluations on every police officer new and old

SHOW us by letting go of every officer, young and old male and female who fail the psychological evaluation

SHOW us by actively working to dismantle systemic racism

SHOW us by giving “Karen” a citation and monetary fine for every bull🤬t call

I don’t want you to feel my pain, I want you to believe me when I say I feel it. I want you to SHOW us you hear our cries.

You say, but Alicia I am not a police officer what can I do? Start a writing campaign, write your local police station and demand real change, write your senators and representatives and demand real change. Ask 10 of your friends to do the same and ask them to ask their family and friends to do the same. If you have a “friend” that is part of the problem let them go. There is no such thing as a good racist. Show them you will not tolerate their “harmless” comment. I repeat... There 👏🏾 is 👏🏾 no 👏🏾 such 👏🏾 thing 👏🏾as 👏🏾 a 👏🏾 harmless 👏🏾 racist.

Show is a verb.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.