Please Don’t Stop

I’m not a black man. I’m actually the exact opposite: a white female. But I give a damn, and I’m not going to stop giving a damn.

In the United States, politicians and people in power count on the short attention span of the American people.

We’re angry one day, or maybe our anger lasts a whole week, and then it fizzles out. We become preoccupied with the next scandal, the next story.

Black lives matter. And we can’t give up this movement. Right now, cops, law enforcement, politicians, they’re all just holding their breath. They know that, because of two recent police killings — rest in sweet peace, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile — people are angry right now. But, just for right now. Give it a couple of weeks, and we’ll get over it. We’ll have another shooting, or a terrorist attack, or some political scandal (what a great country we live in).

Imagine if we don’t stop. If we can force people in power, whether its cops, politicians or even just our parents who doubted our commitment, to realize that this movement isn’t going away — they’ll have to face it. Our movements, the things we care about, they cannot be fads. They cannot be trends. Our anger cannot rise up and abate as quickly as it came, as quickly as it took that police officer to take a life.

With each injustice, there is a response, because we as a people, as a whole, are inherently good. But lets stop waiting for injustices. Police killings of black men and women run deeply into the foundation of our country, a country built upon oppression, a country where systemic racism is a part of our daily lives, whether it affects us or not.

Let’s not wait for the next man or woman to be killed to be angry. We’re angry now. No one else needs to die because we forget our anger, or because we forget the importance of justice until it is rubbed in our faces.

Please don’t stop being angry, sad, afraid, heartbroken, whatever it is you feel. Please keep your anger and use it as a tool for change. Don’t let this fade away.

Please don’t stop. I’m with you, and we are on the right side of history.