As a white woman its hard to understand what black people in this country are going through. However as a lesbian I do understand being part of a marginalized group. I was explaining to my sestra recently that everywhere I go I pay attention. I pay attention to my surrounding, the people, their actions, their mannerisms… so I can be safe. If I see someone wearing a confederate flag, I tend to be frightened, if they are willing to be openly racist they will have no issue being openly homophobic. The difference is for the most part I can still enjoy the privilege of being white and that my minority status is not “obvious”. But that doesn’t mean I am not standing up and trying to force my fellow white people to see that racism is still a huge issue in this country. I respect law enforcement however I believe I can respect them and demand they be held to a very high standard. As a pacifist I am completely against violence of all kinds and it breaks my heart that black men are being killed and what happened in Dallas was horrible as well. And being able to see both as tragic doesn’t mean I value one set of people lives over another… I believe in peace and love, in tolerance and acceptance. I struggle to put into words what these events are making me feel. However I do believe we need to talk more, we need to ask more questions, we need to be uncomfortable and hash out these issues so we can all grow and learn as a people. I try to have hope for humanity but times like these it is very hard. So lets talk, lets ask the hard questions, lets be uncomfortable, its the only way things will change.