PSA to folks like me who are new to getting loud and getting active: get ready for a lifetime of this. Even if there are victories on policing, our work will not be finished, not even close. Policing is hugely important but it’s only a symptom. The disease is the deep-down white supremacy that needs to be dismantled in our culture and all our interconnected systems.

Ahmaud Arbery wasn’t killed by police, and the decision not to charge his murderers or Breonna Taylor’s for months wasn’t made by police; our entire “justice” system is implicated.

We just passed the 5-year anniversary of Kalief Browder’s trauma-induced death by suicide resulting from 3+ years of pre-trial incarceration as a teenager on suspicion of stealing less than $1000; who got paid to incarcerate him, who got paid to postpone and postpone and postpone the trial that would have exonerated him, who got paid to pressure an innocent boy to take a plea deal?

Who called the police on Rayshard Brooks?

Who among us looks at all this and thinks it’s someone else’s issue, a Black problem?

All I’m saying is, I’m in this to uproot police violence, yes. But we need to get ready to stay in this for our whole lives, because there’s a whole forest out there — in here — that needs to be uprooted.

Black lives matter. Defund the police. And don’t stop there.