I respect you more than you know as well. And……..

“On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile,[a] a 32-year-old black American, was pulled over while driving in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and killed by Jeronimo Yanez, a St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer. Castile had been driving a car at 9:00 pm with his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter when he was pulled over by Yanez and another officer in a suburb of Saint Paul, MN.[3][4] After being asked for his license and registration, Castile had told Officer Yanez that he had a firearm, to which Yanez replied “Don’t reach for it then”, and Castile said “I’m, I, I was reaching for…” Yanez said “Don’t pull it out”, Castile replied “I’m not pulling it out”, and Reynolds said “He’s not…” Yanez repeated “Don’t pull it out”[5] and then shot Castile seven times.[6]”

No one lives an easy life. We all need to be good to each other. And there are some people for whom the system is particularly rigged against them — on top of the way that the system is rigged against most of us in some way. I am strong — which is why I speak on behalf of those who are more disadvantaged than I am. And I have a lifetime of being made to feel afraid and less than for being female. And mostly I’ve worked with that and overcome a lot of it. Some of it I just healed from in the past 5 years at age 50 because I truly threw society out the window and started living in a way that worked for me. I didn’t even know how harmed I was until I had the opportunity to begin to heal.

I don’t see you as the enemy. I absolutely don’t see you as an insensitive asshole. I very much appreciate getting to have a real conversation with you. Seeing victims as weak and a problem is a function of the dominance hierarchy that we live in called patriarchy. And I don’t blame you for that either. It’s the ocean we have all swam in these past 10,000 years. And it’s still not right…….. Not from my perspective.

My point is, we can all do better. We can take better care of our brothers and sisters and that’s something I want to move towards. Life will never be perfect. It will never be roses… and that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do better anyway.