White Asheville (and other places) — However you’re able, please march today.

March in the streets starting at 12 at the YMI guided by Black organizers and centering the leadership of youth, let your body show the numbers of us who are in this together. And LISTEN to the leadership of Black folks.

March from your home or in a sacred place through prayers for reckoning with the hard truths of our past and present, a gentle and complete unraveling, deep healing, actual justice, protection for Black lives and all those who risk their lives, and a future that is truly one of equality and freedom.

March in books, articles, podcasts as you study the history of policing, the criminal justice system, police budgets, the ways systemic racism lives strongly in every organization and institution today.

March in your journal and reflect on how White Supremacy Culture is alive in you and get specific about what you are doing, will start doing, will keep doing to notice it and root it out of you.

March with your wallet and donate to bail funds, rental assistance for Black and Brown folks, grassroots organizing for Black Lives.

Please allow your heart and your body and your spirit to join with thousands of others in solidarity today (and every day moving forward). Not performative solidarity where you make sure others see what you’re doing or you do something to just make yourself feel at ease that “at least you’ve done something”. Solidarity that is a little scary, that is a stretch from what you normally do, that digs a little into the core of who you are, that is a personal risk in service to the greater good that is truly possible in this city.

You are needed, in whatever way you are able to show up.
   

And if you’re in the streets — wear a mask!!