Growing up on the South Shore of Staten Island, I lived in a racially segregated bubble. It wasn’t until I was in the eighth grade that I first saw a boy with skin darker than mine in the flesh. Prior to that, the closest thing I had was Rerun and J.J. and Arnold and Willis and Webster.

Tres-El and I bonded over jokes about our ridiculously tall Frankenstein-looking Science teacher who despite his height advantage couldn’t stop either us from raining buckets during the Friday after-school student-faculty basketball games. We went to different high schools, lost touch, and reconnected via Facebook several years ago. Admittedly, our Facebook friendship was as superficial as most Facebook friendships are: a few likes on each other’s pictures, the obligatory happy birthday wishes when the notification reminds you that today is Tres-El’s birthday.

Shortly before the George Floyd murder, Tres-El was diagnosed with cancer. I shot him a DM letting him know he was in my prayers. We spent the next several days filling the gap between 13 and 48. And on the morning my father passed, he was among the first to check in and give me strength.

I sent that DM because Tres-El’s life matters.

For the past 25 years I’ve lived in a black and brown neighborhood, shopped at black and brown owned stores, taught black and brown children. Eric Garner was a neighbor and he was murdered in the very park I take my children to celebrate St. George’s Day every June. His life was choked out of his body in front of the store I would buy my daughter SpongeBob ice cream bars while we waited for the dragon parade to begin. Eric was there, with a smile and a pound and nod of respect for the job I was doing as a divorced dad loving his daughter.

Eric’s life mattered.

I currently work for a strong brown woman with a vision for creating a school in which student voices are heard by a faculty that reflects them. I’ve witnessed the challenges she faces as a brown woman in a position of power and leadership. I’ve watched white men and women walk past her assuming the principal must be the bald white guy not the short brown woman. I’ve heard people say “I don’t understand” when she speaks when clearly they do. We’ve shared our observations and she has opened my eyes to many things I had been previously blind to.

Sarah’s life matters.

She has raised a beautiful and intelligent and successful brown young man whom I have had the honor of meeting on a number of occasions. I can’t imagine the challenges she faced guiding her boy to manhood in a world stacked against them both. But I can listen to her stories and I can learn.

Brandon’s life matters.

My colleague is a Queen and the cookie to my cream. We share a love of hip hop, Prince, music in general, and we share a passion for teaching and learning with black and brown children. Like Sarah, she faces the same challenges and has to work ten-fold to not be seen less than. She does it every damn day of the week and never breaks.

Sonia’s life matters.

I work alongside and support some of the most incredible black and brown educators I’ve ever encountered. I watch them find themselves in the faces of the children they teach. I see them striving to give our students their best and admire the lengths they go to to try to make this world a little easier to navigate than it was for them.

Renequa, Pearl, Joanne, Cornell, Robert, Ronald, Roland, Krystal, Armando, Onix, Sasha, Joel, and Josefina’s lives matter.

My significant other has stood by my side and kept me strong through good times and bad. I see the struggle she faces every day proving to the world she is an incredibly intelligent and talented woman and not just a sexy brown body with a very pretty face. I’ve watched her serve as the anchor of her family working overtime and sacrificing her own pleasures to ensure her mother can live a comfortable and worry-free life.

My Woody, your life matters.

I refuse to add attachments to the phrase – white lives, blue lives have always mattered in this world in a way black and brown ones have not. I will never pretend to understand the struggle of my black and brown friends and family because I’m a white man living in a white man’s world designed to make my road to success far more easier than theirs. I will never understand, but I will listen.

And I will say their names.

Black lives matter.