As I sit here and think about the world I live in, I cry. I have cried a lot recently. Between the rapes, mass shootings, and police brutality I begin to get angrier and angrier. I have so much emotion in my heart, and all I do about it is keep it bottled up inside of me. I am silent. When you are silent, you are taking the side of the oppressor. This is not at all what I have intended to do; so now, I am fixing my wrong.

Recently, in the news I am sure you have heard the names of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille. These two men were murdered by police officers recently for doing nothing but selling CDs and having a broken taillight. In this nation I do believe we see color before we see a human being. Who you are is much deeper than skin deep, and so when I see individuals being killed due to the fact that they are black, it makes me sick. Innocent human beings do not deserve to die. Just because I am an ally with black lives matter does not mean I did not mourn the deaths of the officers protecting peaceful protestors in Dallas. I am not a part of a movement that praises innocent deaths. In fact, Black Lives Matter is the complete opposite. The movement's goal is for black people's voices to be heard and to end things like mass incarceration, police brutality, and racial profiling. Everybody deserves a voice and all lives will matter when black ones are also taken into consideration.

I recently attended a protest in Atlanta for Black Lives Matter and the NAACP. While I was there a few reporters came up to me and asked me why I had chosen to join the march. To me that was simple, I am an ally. Being tolerant of the things going on around you is different than standing up and being an ally. While I was there holding my sign people came up to me and hugged me, and took my picture. Two women were in tears as they thanked my friend Jen and me for being there. We just looked at them and told them, "It is the least we can do." Which is true.

As I was standing there and soaking in people's reactions I realized that another way I could help is to write about my experience. I began to talk to people and hear their stories, and two, in particular, stood out to me. I met two lovely young women who were kind enough to share their stories about discrimination. Dereona,19, told me she has experienced police brutality first-hand and was a minor. She and a group of friends were hanging out by a place that was a usual hangout spot. It was the waterfront and their parents were in a restaurant right up the dock. Police confronted the group of young teens and one officer told Dereona that she could go back to her mother. As she began to walk off another cop confronted her and asked her where she thought she was going. She told him that she was going to her mother and she immediately walked by him. At this moment he grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground. Not only is this just plain wrong, but she was 16-years-old. She was thrown to the ground for telling the truth and that is pathetic. In court, he told the judge that he did it because he thought she was from the hood. Dereona was born in the suburbs into a nice family, but none of that matters. No human being deserves to be demeaned in any way like that. As she told me this story I began to tear up, and I knew that white silence needed to stop.

I began to talk to Jasmin, 19, as well. She told me she was discriminated in school and was even physically harmed by a teacher for no reason at all. When her mother stepped in and came to the school about the situation no justice was served. This teacher even had a history of being racist towards other black students. Jasmin was very honest as well about her history with experiencing discrimination. She told me about how uncomfortable she feels even going shopping. Jasmin has been followed around stores because they think she will shoplift if they don’t keep an eye out. This young woman has no history of stealing and would never intend to do so, but this is the textbook definition of racial profiling.

I ended up talking to these two beautiful people for the rest of the opening rally and they impacted me in such a way that I cannot really describe on paper. Those were not the only people either, and as the protest went on it became more and more emotional.

We began the walk through downtown Atlanta and we were overwhelmed with all of the support we got from everybody around us. People were honking (in a positive manner), and screaming “Black Lives Matter”. People were clapping for us as we walked the streets of Atlanta. I saw activists who told me they marched in the 60s civil rights movement. I was in complete shock as I began to realize that we were making history today. I got the chance to stand in solidarity and fight for something that we all believed in. There is something so powerful in that.

I may not be black, and I may have never experienced racial discrimination, but I can, however, stand in solidarity, and break my silence.

I came to the march to make a difference and to impact people, and I ended up going home touched by others. I experienced something so powerful and beautiful in just a few hours. If you are an activist in your community please attend a peaceful protest. There is nothing more powerful than a community of people standing with each other for a cause that is so worth fighting for. So when black lives start to be taken into consideration then we can chant all lives matter. Right now though we should stand with the black community and raise our voices.