In my classes this week: Wednesday and Saturday

This is a powerful and potent time for our community, for this country, and for our world. There have been daily actions in the emerging framework of #BlackLivesMatter and #ICantBreathe, both responses to the failure of grand juries in Missouri and New York to indict police officers who murdered unarmed black men. These actions are sustained and ongoing, and they are a rallying cry for people across the country (and now the world).

Here in Durham, the Durham Police Department responded to an organized community presence on the streets of Durham last Friday with divisive and menacing tactics, excessive use of force, and the completely unnecessary arrest of 31 people, many of whom were physically brutalized in the process of being arrested. This has left our people reeling, and resulted in more waves and ripples of trauma, and thus more need for…