This random old white lady in the store approached us with her had stretched out towards Teige’s hair (fixed in a fro today) and said, “I just HAVE to touch her hair!”

I said, “No, you do not.”

She touched Teige’s hair anyways.

I said, “Please do not do that.” She laughed awkwardly but continued.

I said, “Take your hand off of my child.”

She said, “I just love her hair.”

I said, “That’s great,” as I tried to walk away, not wanting to continue to engage.

Actually, I wouldn’t mind going to a museum of curated defaced, toppled white-supremacist statues, where the true history is told about each. This was never about “erasing history.” It’s about the opposite—being honest about and confronting history.

There are (white) people who are not upset by the murder of George Floyd because their white-supremacist worldview has taught them to dehumanize Black people and find justification for the brutalization and killing of Black people. There are (white) people who are upset by the murder of George Floyd because it makes them uncomfortable, but they still view it as an outlier or “one bad cop” and nothing more.