This week has been extremely emotional for me. I’ve had trouble finding the words to describe the pain I’ve felt over the last week.

Watching black people die over and over to the hands of law enforcement is TRAUMATIC as a black person. It alters the way I view my own existence, the way I see myself.

Imagine being young and the first introduction you have of yourself in history is slavery. People who look like me in chains like animals. People who look like me being attacked by dogs. People who look like me being spat on. People who look like me being called the N word, being degraded, being dehumanized. People who look like me being disproportionately incarcerated. People who look like me not knowing where they come from. A people that has lost their history, lost their names, lost their religion, lost their language. How many times can black America be beat down before they are broken? Every time I see a person who looks like me cry “I can’t breathe” a piece of me dies. This trauma is with me EVERY DAY. Intergenerational trauma weighs on my family.

I cry for George Floyd. I cry for Ahmaud Arbery. I cry for Breonna Taylor. I cry for every black American that has to walk through this life AFRAID FOR THEIR LIFE.

This photo of my grandmother is powerful. I look at it and it makes me angry. I’m angry that being black means being grabbed and touched, having no authority over your body and space. I’m angry that she looks unbothered, that this is the black experience. I think what angers me most are all the people in the back watching. Doing nothing. Accepting the circumstance.

You don’t need to be an expert in all things justice to contribute to systemic change. Find your thing, donate, attend city council meetings, educate yourself, have the difficult conversations on race and privilege, mentor, sign petitions, look deep inside yourself and digest all the ways in which you’re privileged. Looting makes you uncomfortable? Reach deep down and process, why? Why do topics on racial injustice make you uncomfortable? Where was that learned? It is important to be critical of society and social constructions. To be critical of law, where it is produced and by whom. The production of knowledge and accessibility to knowledge.

This is a crucial moment in history. My heart breaks for America and my City of Los Angeles. I feel emotional driving past streets where I’ve had so many good memories that are now destroyed, but this destruction is what black Americans experience when their neighborhoods are bought, gentrified, exploited, and appropriated by the hands of white corporate America. Systems and structures that have been oppressing black people for hundreds of years.

I truly believe that we will start to see change. I hope that this isn’t just a moment for white people to express their condolences and empathy by posting a black square on their timeline, but that you will truly become an ally to the black community. To my white friends, what are you going to do? Corporate America, what are you going to do? Educators, what are you going to do? Law enforcement, what are you going to do?

Let me tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to go vote. I’m going to dedicate my life to serving the black community. I’m going to fight for every black child to get to experience my privilege and opportunity. I will continue to educate myself, reflect, and have difficult conversations.

To my black Americans, I see you, I hear you and I will fight for you till the day I die. In black resilience I find my strength.