I’ll say his name: Stephon Clark. Because I could have an actual gun in my hand in my backyard and the police wouldn’t shoot me dead in three seconds. Pretty sure I’d live to eat a Happy Meal like Dylann Roof after he killed 9 black worshipers at Mother Emanuel.

And I’ll be honest: part of why I’m sure is because I took the Harvard Implicit Bias test on racial attitudes a few days ago. I’m sorry to say that I literally felt my brain struggling harder to make the black/good associations than the black/bad ones. I came out rated “moderate” on my implicit preference for white people over black people. That’s not who I want to be. Nonetheless, it’s who I am.

Because: we live in a deeply racist society. I live in a deeply racist society. Our police live in a deeply racist society. It’s not our fault that it is this way. We did not create it. But we are responsible for our actions within it, and accountable for whether we use what power we have to change it. I’m trying to look at my actions, every day. I hope the Sacramento police are, too.