I support, unreservedly, the right of my fellow Americans to protest the systemic injustices that still lie marbled through the nation’s laws and culture.

As one of its worst effects, the state’s constabulary continues to feel empowered to take the lives of any of my black neighbors and friends, for no reason at all, without expectation of repercussion.

They power their actions on poisons that still course through the country’s heart, present ever since America at its founding declared human enslavement a necessary evil, worthy of compromise. Ensuing generations have covered up and perfumed over this original sin, but have never truly sought to extract and strangle it. The root remains.

George Floyd, born the same year as me, was for a moment last week only the latest of many, many victims of his homicidal assumption. Its continued operation weakens and frays the many-colored American fabric by terrorizing those at its margins, every day.

I call for this to stop now. I stand with every American marching to pull out this corrupt institution, and offer gratitude to every global citizen declaring their sympathy. I pledge to seek avenues where I can lend my help more materially and practically.

And I condemn the cowards in power who can only deny and threaten and fulminate from their cold-war bunkers and their TV studios. I look forward to outliving their relevance, and I demand that my black neighbors all outlive it, too. I will work every day to make this new future: today, and in November, and beyond.

This article was also posted to the “politics” section of Indieweb.xyz.