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Your Black friend is trying to be ok.

Your Black friend in the past 30 days has watched a Black man get shot dead while jogging (Ahmaud Arbery), a Black woman get shot dead while sleeping (Breonna Taylor), and the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Your Black friend has also listened to the President of the United States use segregationist words as a veiled threat.

Your Black friend is trying to be ok.

Please don’t ask us about the looting. Please don’t chastise us about the rioting. Please don’t tell us that all lives matter. Please don’t minimize our fear. Please don’t bring up Black on Black crime. Please don’t ask “What about Chicago?” Please don’t say “if you’d just act like (A Wildly Successful Black Person… Usually Oprah, Obama, Colin Powell, Denzel or Will Smith)”. Please don’t judge us

Your Black friend is trying to be ok.

Listen to your Black friend. Empathize with your Black friend. Support your Black friend. Pray for your Black friend. Pray with your Black friend.

Just let your Black friend know you really care.

Your Black friend will remember who truly had their back during this difficult time. They will remember who was more concerned about a looted Target. They will remember you posting a thinly veiled and racially offensive meme. They will remember you calling looters “Savages”. They will remember your silence about their Black life and the Black Lives of others.

It’s real easy.

Do whatever you can to help your Black friend out because your Black friend is trying to be ok…

My twelve cents…

If you witness someone getting their clothes ripped off their body, you don’t yell at them, demanding to know why they let someone take their clothes. You give them your jacket or shield them as you usher them to privacy.

If your friend gets poked in the eye, you don’t scoff and say “that’s what you get.” You ask how you can make them feel better.

When a child cries, you don’t walk past her and blame her parent for leaving her alone. You comfort the child and attempt to find the parent.

if you think that the riots are too much, unfollow me.

if you don’t think that change needs to happen now, unfollow me.

if you refuse to recognize your privileges, unfollow me.