My Heart Aches

My heart aches. I watch as white police officers cruelly treat yet another African American man. My core trembles and slivers of rage pierce my thoughts. I have not walked in the shoes of my brothers and sisters of color, and I do not pretend to know their struggle firsthand. But that does not diminish the unmistakable pain that grips me from the inside when I watch human beings act with violence toward other human beings. Specifically, I see a white man's hands pinning a black man against the ground, and I see crimson blood streaming down the black man's face, staining his shirt and the ground below...the same crimson that courses through you and me and the men who brutally forced this young man to the ground. This harrowing reality is a haunting echo that must end.