My heart is hurting. I am grateful for this platform and disgusted as I try to help amplify voices that shouldn’t need to tell their sad stories.

America breeds terrorists. And they are white not brown.

My parents grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 60’s. They were 16 when four little girls were bombed in church. In a Christian church… on a Sunday.

Terror is being scared to go to your place of worship because someone might try to kill you there.

Terror is being “confused” with another more “deserving” target of violence.

Terror is watching the news say that a terrorist made a “mistake” and that you were the intended and implied fair target of deadly violence.

Terror is eight incidents of violence in eleven days that are willfully being ignored and not connected.

Terror is attacks on your communities not being called terrorist attacks.

Terror is knowing that the cops killed your son and having to rely on the (in)justice system for justice.

Terror is being shot dead by the cop who hit your 4 year old daughter with his motorcycle.

Terror is being incarcerated for defending yourself when you were attacked.

Terror is white people comparing you and your struggle to their right to have guns in a library.

Terror is being brown, black, immigrant, non white, non straight, non cis, in a culture that will kill you for it.

These recent tragedies are not random, nor senseless. They are the product of an ethnocentric culture that assumes white and might are right. I see opportunity for solidarity across communities of color and faith in the wake of this violence. I hope that these tragic points of connection can be the impetus for new alliances across differences.