There has been a lot of media coverage on the Trump chalkings on the Emory University campus. A lot of people in the Emory community have come out that they do not feel safe on campus because of this incident. With this fear inhibiting the lives of so many Emory students, I have decided to come out with something that the students at Emory do not know: that I live in fear each and every day. But, I am not afraid of chalk.

I am not afraid of the people around me on campus hurting me. Emory, for me, is a safe place where the real world problems do not seem to hit me. We are a very isolated campus, free from a lot of the discrimination in the surrounding areas.

I am not afraid of chalk, or the idea that something bad could happen to me. I am afraid for my fellow Native American women who are not safe in their homes, the women who are my friends and relatives back home, who live in fear of our real world things that happen each and every day.

The Indian Law Resource Center reports the following:

Native women are more than twice as likely to be stalked than other women.

Native women are murdered at 10 times the national rate.

One out three Native women will be raped in their lifetime.

Three out of five Native women will be physically assaulted.

88 percent of the perpetrators are non-Indian and cannot be prosecuted by tribal governments.

Native women face rates of sexual violence and physical assault that are two and a half times higher than violence against any other group of women in the United States -- levels now on a par with estimates of violence against women globally.

These are my real problems. These are the things happening to my cousins, my aunts, my sisters, and my friends. These are the things I fear. I am not afraid of chalk. Words and presidential campaigns mean nothing to Native Americans. Ignorant white men have been threatening my people for years.

I understand where my fellow minorities are coming from when they say that they feel threatened by the Trump chalkings, but what people need to understand is that I too feel pain and fear every day. There is no media coverage of my people’s suffering. No Facebook trend to give the Native activists their glory. My people have nothing.

For me, this is not something that is going to wash away when the rain comes down. These are the threats that are tattooed into the flesh of my people. The threats that are real. The threats prey upon my people every day.

So, find something real to fight for, Emory. I fight for my people each and every day. Find something important to be an activist for. Maybe having the Trump 2016 chalk on campus was your wake-up call and if that is the case, then so be it. But, do not forget about some of the other threats that other Emory students face each and every day. If you feel threatened in the same way about the chalk on the ground as I do about Native women and violence, then fight hard. Do your job. Be mindful. Chalk is controversial.