My heart is broken today. When I woke up it seemed like I shouldn’t even bother to get up. Why paint and write in a world like this? A friend encouraged me to try anyway. What pain and hopelessness and fear I feel is trivial compared to the families and friends grieving lost loved ones today and the communities across this country wondering not if – but when – racial violence will happen again.
I want a country where I never feel the need to paint this again. I want justice for State Senator Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Susie Jackson, Tywanza Sanders, Cynthia Hurd, Reverend Daniel Simmons, Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Ethel Lance, Myra Thompson, Reverend DePayne Middleton, and the hundreds more who have already died this year, and last year, and the year before that. America is a graveyard, and what hurts the worst is knowing we are capable of so much better than this but we choose to do so little.
Black lives matter.