Why #BlackLivesMatter to Me.

For Dimarea and Del, two young Black lives we lost before their fullest bloom. For Boots Riley, a great teacher in my community. And for KS: may we find freedom and forgiveness in a situation we didn’t create.

For many of us, it is easy to call upon the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when confronted with the reality of racism in the United States. He spoke peace. He’s also long dead. His murder was decades ago.

For others, myself included, it is second nature to look to the wisdom of Angela Davis, bell hooks, and Bernice Johnson Reagon: I came into my political consciousness through their words of rage and love, justice and healing. Their teachings nourish me when I seek remedies to violence, including the violence of policing, detention, and incarceration.

It is often harder and more crucial to honor Black lives on a daily basis. On our streets. In our prisons. At our schools. In our workplaces.

I write this piece to honor the many Black people who have taught me about racism’s assault on the lives and spirit of Black people today. I am sharing it publicly because Black people have enriched my community and expanded my consciousness. Daily.

I used to work as a college instructor at U.C. Santa Cruz. One semester, I was teaching three courses. One class was “Introduction to Film Studies” and had an enrollment of more than 300 students. Another was a small senior seminar, “Decolonial Cinemas,” for majors in the Film and Digital Media Studies Department. (The third, I believe, was a course on genders and sexualities in the Americas, which I taught in another department).

Due to a fluke in scheduling, I happened to teach two films about Black life in the U.S. on the same day. In the intro course, I screened Robert Townsend’s Hollywood Shuffle (1987). After class, a first year student, a young Black woman, approached me to share that she had been dreading that day’s teaching.

She thanked me.

This student felt such relief, she said, for the sensitive and intelligent way I spoke about racism on screen and the lives of actual Black people. People like her. I was surprised to hear her words, grateful to be seen as an ally. I recall thanking her for being so vocal in a such a large course (she was one of about two dozen students who regularly contributed to discussions during lectures). Then I moved on to my other tasks and teaching.

That night, in my senior seminar, I screened Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977). During the break, another Black student approached me. He was touched and inspired by the film, he said. He had loved the readings I assigned about the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers and the L.A. Rebellion.

He also shared that his time in the film program had been painful. He was often the only Black person in the room, and many of his instructors showed little interest in Black culture and Black people. As a longtime instructor in that program, I knew his words to be true. It was a pain I felt and often heard from other students and some faculty members.

I didn’t connect their stories — these students — immediately. I made the connection on the long ride from Santa Cruz to Oakland, where I lived. I wept for fifty miles. Two young Black people felt the urge to thank me, their college professor, for not being racist.

I still grieve for these students’ experience.

These young Black people taught me to see my work from a new lens: I was teaching for freedom — and they too were teachers.

I haven’t always been an ally. I have hurt Black people, even in my work for peace, justice, and freedom.

During the heady, passionate times of the Occupy movements, I was part of the effort in Oakland to change the name from Occupy Oakland to Decolonize Oakland. Of course, the issue wasn’t so much the name as the goal: we were working towards system change, and the indigenous community in the Bay had requested a formal name change as an act of meaningful solidarity.

In our proposal, we explained our intention:

Oakland is the ancestral homeland of the Chochenyo Ohlone, an indigenous community that has no collective territory of their own and no recognized legal status or rights…. We want to deepen our efforts at political transformation by using language that heals, unites, and educates our communities. This name change signals our deep and lasting commitment to liberation from corporate and capitalist violence, which are rooted in colonial relations…. Let us choose a name that reflects our actions and beliefs. Decolonize Oakland! Liberate our communities! Practice freedom!

We were met with bitter opposition from many people in the local camps, assemblies, and demonstrations.

One of the many leaders of Occupy Oakland was a local rapper whose music I adore. Boots Riley is a great teacher, using his voice to teach about justice, liberation, decolonization. He opposed the name change. I am not sure of Boots’ particular reasoning, though I recall that many people opposed the name change to work in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and the other Occupy camps around the world.

I wrote Boots Riley an open letter inviting him to change his position. That letter went viral, prompting discussion and heated debate. And here is where I failed to act as an ally: I forgot his humanity. I lost sight of his teachings over many years. I made Boots the target of critique, not the language of occupation that we sought to change.

I didn’t invite Boots to change his position: I shamed him personally and publicly for his opposition to the Decolonize Oakland proposal. No, I wasn’t an ally in that moment. My actions divided our community even further. I didn’t practice freedom.

My heart still hurts when I remember the pain I caused. I’m sorry, Boots Riley. Please forgive me. You have taught me so much. You still teach me.

Racism against Black people is systemic.

It is also deeply personal. And the responsibility to change starts with me, you, us. Black lives matter because freedom is our birth right. It’s in our blood, even when spilled. Power to all peoples, power to the peaceful.

Teacher/My hand’s up/Please, don’t make me a victim.

Teachers/Stand up/You need to tell us how to flip this system.

• The Coup, “Strange Arithmetic,” 2012.