I took this photo of a child not yet old enough to understand hatred at the KKK rally that happened here in South Carolina a few years back during the aftermath of the Charleston 9 massacre and the ensuing Confederate Flag debate. It made me sad then. It makes me sick now. This is not the future we want. But it’s the one we’ll have unless we take action. 

There is no such thing as alt-left. We literally just want to be treated as human beings… Equal ones. Ones who don’t get shot dead in the street by the people we PAY to protect us. We want to be people who don’t have to go to work in buildings named for people who thought we were some sort of subspecies. We want our history taught in schools. CORRECTLY. And our history is more than Martin Luther King and President Obama. We want people to stop telling us to forget about slavery when cyclical poverty, education gaps, and modern-day discrimination and racism remind us that our ancestors fight never really ended. If you wanna normalize fascism and neo-nazism, fine. Do it. If you wanna call me alt-left because I want to fight for my people, so be it.  Just know that years from now, when the history books tell this story, you’ll be the people in the picture yelling at the Little Rock 9 to go home. The photos of rope lynchings will be juxtaposed by videos of the beatings of protestors fighting for their lives. Thoughts of the bloody history of the Edmund Pettus Bridge will be stained in our brains because we know that Ferguson, Staten Island, Charlotte and now Charlottesville are just the beginning. We will ask ourselves what is right. We will look ourselves in the mirror and make decisions about our place in the work. We will realize that the threat of doing nothing is far more dangerous than anything we have to fear. If you were waiting for a sign or a moment this is it. If you were holding out for us to hit rock bottom before you decide to act–this is it. There is no easy way out. Take your talents and your skills and figure out where you’re supposed to be and you’re supposed to be doing to be doing to advance the movement. Big or small. Find your local BLM chapter, NAACP, independent organization or even just a group of friends who go to public forums/meetings to stay informed. There is always SOMETHING we can do. Now is the time to do it.