Rolling Stone

“People get annoyed with me, but I’m very poised. This is me – I’m relaxed. It’s annoying we have to explain something that is common sense. We just want to be treated equally. Why is there a debate?”

 

“I have friends that are just now realizing it. It took 10 to 15 years for you to understand this and I’ve been right here. It’s exhausting to constantly be surrounded by all these experiences that I endured in my childhood. It’s like pulling my old skeletons out of the closet. I’ve been silenced for years and years and years and now it’s everywhere.”

 

“I am mad at the system for having me think that when I protest I am doing something wrong. We’ve developed this slave mentality because we’ve been silenced for so long. The fact that we’ve [black people] been robbed of a proper social life. For example, I felt deprived from having a real dating relationship growing up — or even now. I was ‘too dark’ within my race and basically a sin to even consider attractive for white people and when you grow up with that for so long it just constantly chips and chips and chips at your self esteem. I know beautiful black girls who couldn’t get a date to prom, never had a boyfriend, and if they did they were second to last choice. This repeats through preschool to college, and ​a lot of black women like myself are desensitized to having a high standard or a high value of themselves due to this pattern​ and I tell people that’s the heart of racism.”

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“I got emotional at the protest because it was so many people showing up for black people. There were so many white people there being allies, whether they were offering water or quite literally putting themselves in between angry cops and black bodies.”

 

“I want to be hopeful after seeing this radical change, but I’m afraid that things will go back to normal, we’ve seen it time and time again. ​At times it’s overwhelmingly beautiful, and at other times it’s incredibly exhausting. It’s like we’re given permission to rest — which sometimes feels uncomfortable. And then other moments we are called to action. For me there’s something telling me I still need to do something. And of all the moments this was the moment I went to my first protest, and was injured. It was so energetic. So many emotions. So much to do after that. So much.”

 

“There’s even more irritation with everything that’s going on while we’re on lockdown because there are so many messages when it comes to being black. If you’re a black person you can rest — you don’t have to protest. Let the white people do all the work, but there’s something in me telling me I still need to do something.”

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“I think, as chaotic as it is right now it’s like pulling back a veil that we always knew existed. It’s terrifying, but necessary.”

 

“I’ve been pulled over and out of my car by 12 cops for ‘driving in the wrong neighborhood.’ They said I fit a description of a drug dealer and opened my doors and handcuffed my friend and I. After a while, they just said you’re free to go, but that left trauma for months. I didn’t sleep for weeks.”

 

“My father is from Sudan and my mother is from India. We’ve stayed in America with these racist experiences because they are the taxes that we pay in order to live and thrive in America. I’m glad that my kid is four years old now so, that way, when he’s older, he’s going to be learning about this time. It should be different for him. I’m glad that this chaos is happening now, so we can be the phoenix that rises from the ashes. I hope his generation is a lot smarter than ours and I hope they don’t get caught up in politics and help with things that are really going on.”

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People congregate at Cal Anderson Park on June 3rd during the the protests that led to the Seattle Police Dept. abandoning the East Precinct in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

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No Cop Co-Op, where food donations were distributed to anyone in need, photographed on June 12th inside CHOP in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhod.

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A cardboard cutout of an armed individual, photoshopped into wire images as part of FoxNews’ coverage, at one of CHOP’s barricades in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood on June 26th.

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Toward the middle of the Sunday marchers, two women were carrying a huge flowered effigy of Marsha P. Johnson, one of the trans women of color credited with leading the 1969 Stonewall Riots, while flanked by people waving black flags.

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The outfits and flags that people made were impressive, ranging from butterfly and angel wings to colorful capes and sequined outfits.

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The marchers took over all of Sixth Avenue, with an estimated 50,000 people attended the march, which began across from New York’s City Hall at Foley Square to the Stonewall Inn, and finally ending with a demonstration at Washington Square Park.

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