In my younger days, I did some pretty messed up shit. I crashed my mom's car into the median of the highway drunk AF. The officer who pulled me over gave me a ride to a friend's house and then home. He called and checked up on me the next day to make sure I was ok. I got pulled over with weed, and alcohol in my car while underage. The cops confiscated and let me go. I got caught illegally smuggling cannabis and alcohol over the Canadian border at SEVENTEEN years old and they confiscated and let me go. I’ve had cops drive behind me and follow me home when I had a tail light out to make sure I got home safe. I got caught shoplifting while on drugs as a teenager and the cop didn’t even arrest me. He took me to the hospital and stayed with me till my parents got there.

I grew up in a small town, where the police were my friend's parents, and my parents always heard about my shenanigans the next day through the local gossip network. My local cops were undoubtedly pretty decent guys, and I like to think that they would never have hurt me even if I’d been of a different color skin or different sex. But I can’t sit here and say that’s not part of what’s happening nationally.

My parents never once told me to be scared of the police. In fact, I was encouraged to find a police officer if I was scared or lost. 

Because the cops don’t kneel on the throats of people who look like me while they cry for their mothers and beg that they can’t breathe. I had the immense privilege of drinking in the woods with friends and all of us acted wild, talked back to the cops, and were never any worse for the wear. 

If you’ve never been scared to take a walk, or do a normal everyday activity never mind act a fool then you have likely benefited from white privilege. 

I grew up poor, and I’ve been homeless. I was a teen mom and I struggled and worked my ass off to get where I am, but there have been many, many times when things could have gone a different way for me but I was lucky to be in the skin I was in. 

So before you spout off that it’s not about race, it fucking IS.