Outside Portland Police Station. All is quiet at the moment. The sun has just risen...

 
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Outside Portland Police Station. All is quiet at the moment. The sun has just risen. There is a bit of trash on the sidewalk. An overflowing trash can. A ripped open package of water bottles near the steps. A news team just finishing taping a segment across the street. And RIP GEORGE FLOYD spray painted on the brick wall of the station.

They wanted to be photographed. But I don't have direct permission to reveal their identities. They were unable to attend the protests yesterday. The feeling, and it is feeling based only on a few sentences of communication, that they wanted to be part of this moment. Wanted to be seen. A certain pride in making this stand, perhaps? An urgency to speak up? A mix of deep distress and relief, like an exasperated unspoken 'Finally...'.
Speculation on my behalf?

I leave their faces blank. Not to rob them of their identity but maybe as a space for us to place ourselves. A space to place ourselves in if we have not already tried on the cloak of our injustices. Our uninvestigated racism. I leave the space. White. Open. Making a stand.
Strip away the privilege. The entitlement.
There is no where to go back to. We are all from away excepting the Indigenous community that has survived our genocide. Yes, genocide. Only here to go from. I wonder and implore, how will we be? 

You're so pretty I might get distracted...

 
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You're so pretty I might get distracted. But my black male friend, just like yours, isn't any safer today going for a run. Or being stopped at a light. Or wearing a mask. Or sitting in his apartment. And that is a lifelong pain in my gut. There are genocides being committed as we speak. An epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. There is systemic rape in this world. Families starving. And have we forgotten the Opioid Epidemic? But I will still look at this pretty flower hold it in one hand and vow not to be crushed by its beauty.