I have a very smart,articulate and proud black friend. I met her when she was giving a speech trying to stop the 1st Iraq war. I think it is important for all of us to remember where we have been when it comes to racism so I am sharing her post to day.

"I cannot escape the images of George Floyd, but in an attempt to do so, I turned to some geneological research. I found new information on my great-great-grandmother Rebecca Sophie Keller. It brought a smile to my face until I remembered her story -- how she died of cholera, leaving young children who were SOLD INTO A WORKHOUSE (well after the date of Emancipation) and sentenced to work their little bodies doing laundry in return for meager fare and a hard bed to lie in, for the crime of being black and orphaned in Louisiana. How my great-grandfather Richard Keller and his oldest sister Carrie, just children themselves, worked night and day to create a home and had to purchase their siblings' freedom from this nouveau slave construct. How shared sacrifice and courage in the face of unbelievable adversity got us through things that no child -- indeed, no adult -- should have to face. How I never even knew her full name before, Rebecca Sophie, no last name, and still do not know where she hailed from, because she and her husband George were considered property, not human beings, and how their descendants are likewise considered less than human and can be murdered on the cold streets of America, lynched for the crime of being black. How black children are snatched from their mothers' arms every day and thrown into foster care hell and behind bars. How nothing, has. changed. Fuck the police. Fuck white supremacy. Fuck this nation that has promoted it, profited from it, built wealth and power based upon this racist settler colonialist construct, this knee the necks of black, brown, indigenous people for so many hundreds of years. We are sick and tired of being sick and tired."