Sonya Massey was a Black woman asking for help from police officers. She told the officers not to hurt her.

She was shot in the face by a police officer, anyway, for holding a pot of hot water.

Sonya Massey was an 36-year-old mom of two, daughter and friend. Now she is a hashtag. We will say her name at protests, on social media and pray it echoes to the courthouse and in the ears of jurors.

Listen, y’all. I’m tired. Exhausted, actually. I know all Black women are at this point. That’s why I wanted to come into this safe space to open my heart.

I don’t usually write about these occurrences because it’s extremely triggering. If You Blinked is space for joy, specifically Black joy and unity that doesn’t take up a whole helluva a lot of space in mainstream media.

But we can’t always bask in the sun.However warm, welcoming and inviting it may be. There will always be dark clouds attempting to eclipse the sun we so desperately and deservedly need. It’s why sometimes we have to look at the darkness, even if it breaks your heart in the process.

Watching the body cam footage of a helpless woman raising oven mitts as her only defense against 3 bullets to the skull sends me into a tailspin. And has this neverending thought bubble following me around like a dark cloud: am I next? Is my mom, niece, sister, aunts…are they next?

“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus”

We rebuke all the devils that try to silence us in the name of Sonya Massey.