I’m pissed off and scared.

The CNN app on my iPhone says that an unarmed black man was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

Only four months before, two Durham, North Carolina, police officers detained me at a BP gas station because I looked like someone they arrested earlier.

Because I had Mayor Bill Bell’s personal cell number in my contacts, they let me go, but what if I hadn’t worked with Bill on that gubernatorial campaign? Would I have been shot like Michael Brown? Would I have been choked out like Eric Garner, who died weeks before in Staten Island?

Biting my hand, I pace the floor of my apartment. Hearing protesters yelling from the T stop, I think about walking the block to join them, but my introversion and social awkwardness kick in.

In the back of my mind, I hear the booming voice of my mother — a Madea with two masters degrees — yelling, “Boy, I’ll kill you if you get arrested with them folks! If you lose that fellowship, I can’t pay no damned $90,000 to send your black ass to Harvard!”

I quickly resign that I’m not a protestor, but I embrace what I am: a justice-minded dork. I brew some Yerba Mate using my fiance’s thermos, pack a bowl, and sit down at my desk to research the chaos in Ferguson while Nina Simone plays on Spotify.

CNN: African Americans are two-thirds of the city’s population, but at Michael Brown’s death, white folks serve as mayor, five of six city councilors, six of seven school board members, and 50 of 53 police officers — damn!

Lisa Fitzpatrick, my housemate and current medical director for DC Medicaid, isn’t home, so I FaceTime Vedette Gavin, my best friend at the Kennedy School.

Our deep conversation about Brown’s death, Officer Darren Wilson’s predicted acquittal, and the chaos in the streets are the direct result of the power distance between the African American majority and the white minority in power.

I lean on Vedette to survive the Kennedy School. During our one-month summer orientation, police kill five unarmed black men in separate incidents across four states. We grow outraged that simmering issues boiled over because black residents lacked police and government representation.

We decide to meet on campus each week to figure out how to leverage our past work to empower communities of color with the tools to always have a voice.