Wasn’t going to include a comment here but I’ve been thinking about this a lot, so here it goes: The other day my sister was going to protest in SD and my mom was understandably worried and going over all the typical “mom rules” for being safe (which she usually reserved for our first solo trip abroad or late nights out when we were teenagers). My sister told her she’d be safe, she would only be peacefully protesting and besides, she felt safe because “people always think she’s white anyways.” I’ve been thinking about that all day and it reminded me of a time I was pulled over for speeding a few years ago— I can’t even remember the exact reason why now but for some reason I was so annoyed by the police officer for pulling me over I was immediately rude to him when he came to my window. The police officer told me that he was originally just going to give me a warning but because of my attitude felt I needed a ticket to learn my lesson (I probably did, I was a dumb teenager speeding near a road on the beach where tons of pedestrians walk). But of course this only made me more irate, I basically threw a temper tantrum in my car. I remember being scared of how mad my mom would be about the ticket. Scared of how expensive it would be to pay. But never once scared of the police officer. Even though I am black, I have frequently had the privilege of looking white enough and I realize now that so many times I’ve taken advantage of that, but never once used the privilege to help others— to protest, to speak out without fear, to make a positive change by sharing my experience. This is a promise to hold myself accountable, to do better and be better.