as i watched, my body was shaking hard

— but when the mirror is held up, we have to look.

I was gonna bring it up at dinner that night, but decided to wait.

Actually — wait. The truth is that at dinner, I took a breath to begin to explain why I had been so upset earlier that afternoon and was shown with a quiet gesture that we shouldn’t talk about it.

We need to talk about it.

The girls and I talked the next morning.

I choose not to show any images to them. This choice is a privilege, I realize.I prefer to deliver the information like alt text, having control over my words and tone and phrasing. It’s important to use the right words and you can’t unsee some things.

I explained what had happened — that this was a small amount of people behaving violently and wrongly in contrast to the many, many people who are fighting for justice and putting pressure where it’s necessary.

I frame this issue around fairness. That it’s not fair that white bodies are protected and allowed and even ushered in AND OUT of spaces where Black bodies are barred from and/or brutalized. That peaceful people, people like me and and them and their friends and our neighbors were blocked, bruised, tear gassed, rubber bulleted, shoved, kettled, punched, arrested arrested arrested.

I explained that the police were the people doing these things to the peaceful protesters’ bodies. Over and over again. That the police opened the barricades to let these white supremacists in. That they took pictures with them. That they were on the same side.

I told them that seeing this, the pictures of these people, the way their bodies were valued with such worth and care — POLICE WALKING PEOPLE OUT OF THE BUILDING HANDLE WHITE BODIES WITH CARE — and knowing how broken things are makes me so angry and quite frankly, want to throw up.

Pia asked “Would a Black woman police officer let those people in?”

…