On June 8, two weeks after the murder of George Floyd, we met at the park, and at 5:30 we all knelt for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
It’s a long time to kneel. It’s not a natural, comfortable thing to do. To kneel for that long you must make a conscious effort. To kneel on a person’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds is not an afterthought or an accident. It is an evil thing, and an evil thing to do it with the knowledge that you have years of systemic abuse of power and privilege behind you.
I cried throughout the whole thing, though I was kneeling on soft grass, with my family next to me, and my neighbors surrounding me in sadness and in love.
Afterwards we chanted #blacklivesmatter and started to clap along. Eventually we just all clapped, silent and the walls of the canyon echoed and bared witness to our shared sorrow.