Growing up poor in Section 8 housing in the East side of St. Paul, every cop I ever interacted with was not only disinterested in helping, but obviously held contempt for the community they were sworn to serve.

It makes you feel hopeless and angry. There is no good outlet. It festers and creates a horrible pit in your heart. And this was my experience as a white person.

If you don't understand why people are reacting the way that they are, or think that people are overreacting, consider yourself incredibly blessed.

“Well, I've had bad experiences with cops, but I'd never--"

^ Don't do that ^

Detractors always rush to point out "Well, I've suffered too, but I didn't react like THAT!"

Listen.

If you're one of these detractors, accept that other people's experiences and lives are different in ways that you could not even begin to imagine. Accept that any suffering you've experienced is not the same and likely will never be the same.

Overcome your visceral defensive reaction, and try to think outside your own box.

If you don't understand what's going on, you're not trying hard enough. The least you can do is own up to that and try a little harder.

If the above makes you feel defensive or angry, read on:

Pause for a second and think about why that is. It's likely because you've been hurt before, and you think that I'm telling you "you haven't been hurt before, so you don't understand."

But that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that you haven't been hurt in the same way, and that maybe, you can't be hurt in the same way, so you need to try extra hard to understand that the pain other people feel is different in a way that you can't possibly imagine.

Also know that the pain of others doesn't "cheapen" your pain. Just because their pain is harder, doesn't mean yours isn't hard. It doesn't make sense to get defensive about it- you just need to understand and accept that their pain is worse than yours, and that's just how it is.

In other words, no one is telling you that you're not suffering. They are trying to make you understand the truth that they are suffering more than you are. And you, at the very least, need to do your best to accept and understand this truth.