Dear reader : your voice is important, make it loud.

Whoever you are, whatever you do, your voice matters and we need it. Because you are human, because we all are and we all want one thing: equality and justice.

Now is not the time to remain silent because yes, right now, silence is acceptance. We do not seek violence, nor revenge. Only justice and equality.

Pay attention: the outbreaks of violence that you can see in the manifestations are not related to our people leading the movement. They’re instigated by looters that just want to use this occasion to diffuse hatred or by police officers or governmental agents.

You’re silent but you do not agree with police brutality and acknowledge the inherent racism? Then ask yourself some questions:

• Why am I silent? What do I fear is going to happen if I raise my voice?
• Am I afraid to lose my job? To lose my reputation? Am I scared of being judged?
• What are my priorities?
• What world do I want to live in and to leave after me?
• Why staying silent is dangerous?

The last one is a complicated question. And we cannot blame anyone for staying silent because we’re all humans, we all have fear and we can understand. But we expect you to raise your voice. Why?

Well, because we’re all humans. And it is a human matter to ensure that everyone gets the same treatments. What is happening right now is a threat to our basic human rights. To our life. To our freedom. Our freedom of speech.

And don’t make no mistake, freedom of speech is not freedom of saying anything.

We expect you to be concerned as we are, because we’re talking about failures in our global system, in our world. It is time to think of ourselves as humans. We do not want to enhance the differences and to amplify the gap between everyone. We want to unite behind our differences. Because we’re all different in many ways. But that’s what makes us strong and can lead us to aim at higher purposes.

We’re all human beings. We all have the same basic needs. We all want to be safe when we walk home. We all want to be sure that we’ll be able to go home to our wife, men, kids, pets, to our safe and sacred place at the end of the day.

So speak up. Let’s unite our voices and make this world a world we actually enjoy living in. We are the creators of our reality in many ways. And changing the world in a way that fits what we want and what we need is what we can do. And we will.

You want to help but do not know how to?

I’m not saying that you are forced to go manifest. But that’s the most visible and impactful way. The more we are, the louder we are, the more visible we are.

But if you’re scared — then again, we can understand — we are lucky enough to possess various ways of helping the cause.

You can make donations to help protestors. You can help by sharing the information beyond medias. You can help raising consciousness around you. You can spread the message, be aware of what’s happening and be a part of it. Using social medias and various platforms.

We all know how the last few months have been hard and we did not went through it in the same way. We cannot forget that we do not all have the same emotional or mental state right now. And that’s perfectly fine. This is a powerful period, and things can quickly become intense and escalate.

If you feel that you do not have the emotional or mental ability to deal with it the way you would like to or the way others do, that’s fine. You should not put your mental health at risk if you cannot stand it. Act on your level, raise your voice in softer ways, create engaged art, write, share the word. There are many ways of raising your voice.

Now is the time to make some research. To educate yourself about history, to put yourself in the shoes of anyone concerned by the matter and to make a change.

Here are some books you might be interested in for starters :

• The hate U give — Angie Thomas
• Stamped from the beginning — Ibram X. Kendi
• How to be an antiracist — Ibram X. Kendi
• White trash, The 400-year untold history of Class in America - Nancy Isenberg
• White fragility, why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism — Robin Diangelo
• A people’s history of the united states — Howard Zinn
• We need to talk, how to have conversations that matter — Celeste Headlee
• We keep us safe — Zach Norris

And finally, we’ll have some interesting movies too:

• Malcolm X
• The hate U give
• Ghosts of Mississipi
• The Color Purple
• American History X
• The green book

Thank you for reading this. It certainly does not represent my usual writing style nor the deepness of the content that I can create. This was weighing on my heart and needed to put it out.