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Something’s very wrong with the glaring disconnect between those of us who support the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and those who criticize them.

And I’m having a hard time grasping how there is such a vast difference in perception.

We’re living in the same country, but some of us are losing our lives, our family members, our loved ones, and our sense of peace and safety to police violence. Others seem to think that those of us being slaughtered are the problem, that the police are doing a fine job.

From where I’m standing as a Black woman, this is terrifying. Because people in my community are reacting to a threat that haunts our lives every day.

We’re reacting to a force that has already taken more than 255 of our lives in 2015 by mid-April 2015.

We’re acting on what we know unequivocally to be true: the law enforcement systems authorized to protect us are using deadly force against us instead.

So if anyone thinks that the protests calling attention to these harrowing conditions are uncalled for, then the facts of the reality I’m witnessing must be missing or mischaracterized. The more people believe in misinformation and criticize the rise of vital voices, the more progress slows in the dismantling of the systems killing us.

As progress slows, people die.

Many of you who are against the Black Lives Matter movement, and other anti-police violence protests, like to begin explaining your dissent by saying, “I respect the right to protest, but…”

And I want to interrupt you right there.

That respect makes sense – protests over injustice in the United States are nothing new.

Without them there would be no United States of America. We hail the dissidents of the American Revolution as our nation’s founding heroes, celebrate them every 4th of July, document and applaud their uprising in our history books.

What our history lessons fail to mention is the fact that for people of color, surviving in this country has required fighting against oppression, every day of our lives – through the colonization of Indigenous lands, slavery, Jim Crow, the mass incarceration of Black and Latinx folks, and more – not just during Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

These battles are an undeniable part of our legacy, and something that must continue in order to shake off the lasting impact of centuries of oppression. We continue to fight for safe housing, employment, positive representation, and more of the basic needs required to live with dignity.

The marches taking place today, in response to police brutality and under the banner of Black Lives Matter, may have a new slogan, but they’re addressing the same root causes of injustice that have plagued our nation since its beginning.

The struggle for so many of our dissenters may be that this energy, this commitment to something better, this unrest, this determination to speak up and out is new to many of us alive today. These protests are establishing a cultural precedent we’re not used to.

Not long ago, I wouldn’t have even heard the names of many unarmed Black people killed by police. Now, when a name like Eric Garner or Freddie Gray reaches the media, I hear their names repeated, see them written on banners, watch them move down city streets and up freeway exits.

It’s no longer business as usual as far as police brutality is concerned.

In spite of the alarming need to disrupt this violent system, some see this disruption as a bad thing. There are many common complaints about the Black Lives Matter protests, and Nick Wing has translated them into the discompassionate dismissals they sound like to those of us who care about this movement.

The protests will continue, and as such, I’m sure the objections will keep coming up, too. So before the next demonstration halts traffic and ruffles feathers, let’s look at what people are missing when they voice these objections.

1. You say: “These protests are just disrupting people’s lives. They’re not doing anything to help the cause.”

You cite moments like freeway shut downs and Black Brunch, to say that these protests are pointless at best, and destructive at worst.

Here’s what you’re missing.

Our lives are already disrupted. To you, an uninterrupted commute home from work may feel like everything is all good and peaceful.

But in that moment, as you head home, someone is grieving for their child who didn’t attend work or school that day because they were killed by police. Someone is fearing for their life because a law enforcement officer has profiled and stopped them. Someone in need of protection is more afraid of police than of the person they need protection from.

This issue needs immediate attention. We’re losing our lives.

Helping people wake up to that reality is part of the whole point of civil disobedience, a tactic used to call for justice when we’re facing unjust systems that hold far more power than a carefully worded letter could ever challenge.

Disrupting business as usual is part of the point, too. Because allowing business to continue as usual means maintaining the status quo that’s killing us.

2. You say: “I support peaceful protests, but the rioting is too much.”

You look at the “looting,” the destruction, the rage, and you think about how, regardless of the cause, creating that damage is wrong.

Here’s what you’re missing.

We’re angry. There’s no reason to apologize for that.