We are tired, we are broken, we are hurting

Regardless of your position I ask that you remember that a child lost his father, a mother lost her son and a sister lost her brother.

My friend was there when Daunte Wright's mother found out her son got shot and ran out the house holding Daunte's son, screaming and crying. She shoved her car keys into a stranger's hand and asked the stranger to drive her to the scene because she couldn't herself.

On the way there she held on to hope that her son wasn't dead, only to turn the corner and see her son's body under a sheet. My friend said it was the saddest, most horrible thing she's ever witnessed.

My daughter is best friends with Daunte's sister, who's in middle school. What she's experiencing is unbearable hurt and sadness that she shouldn't ever have to feel.

And I, for one, am tired.

I'm tired of having to remind my daughter when she goes somewhere to make sure their group size isn't too large, to keep her hood down and if, by chance, there's a situation that involves police, to keep her hands out of her pockets and be polite, don't argue, do what they say. And if you're in a car, keep your hands on the dashboard or on the seat in front of you. All because she's old enough now to be considered a threat.

I'm tired of having to sit my 6-year-old down and explain that even though another Black man or woman is dead, not all police are bad.

I'm tired of being asked why we protest, why we riot and why we yell "Black lives matter," "Native lives matter," "people of color lives matter" — as if the hundreds of years of oppression and dehumanization isn't reason enough.

I don't want to be asked why we take a knee or why we behave as if we are unpatriotic, as if the nation isn't complicit in the disenfranchisement and the suffering of its people. As if we haven't fought wars to protect this country — our country — sacrificing our lives on the front lines because at one point in time we were considered expendable.

I don't want to hear that our message would get across better if we asked nicely, when experience has shown us time again that this is not the case.

And most of all, I am tired of people minimizing our problems, as if they wouldn't feel the same way if the tables were turned.

I cannot make it through the day without breaking down in tears in front of my children. And the thought that I will continue to have these conversations as each of my children grows older is leaving me exhausted.

After being desensitized for so long to the news of Black men and women and children being murdered by the police, by those sworn to serve and protect us, I can no longer maintain the wall I have built. I don't know if it is the fact that Derek Chauvin's trial is taking place and every day I'm reminded how similar George Floyd and my dad were, or the constant barrage of videos showing the last moments of a person's life.

I feel as if my heart is being ripped from my body with every new video, and I am tired and I am broken and I am hurting.

Stephanie McGill lives in Minneapolis.