Thank you to every white ally who has checked in on me or other black friends/colleagues/acquaintances over the last 48 hours. We appreciate you. As someone on the other end, I’d encourage you to keep it as short as possible as some of us are protecting our mental health by...

... trying to stay away from the pain and rage that threatens our souls and receiving yours, and holding our own, is a lot. We appreciate you but it makes us feel like we owe you something - a response, gratitude, acknowledgement at least - when we’re trying to work out what...

... we owe - and how to honour - ourselves. This has always been hard but when most of us are isolated, haven’t seen friends of family for 11 weeks, are scared we’ll die from coronavirus or from cops - this pain can’t be kept company.