Shana Lynn Schmidt, LLC

I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m going to try.
I’m trying to wrap my brain around what it feels like to be persecuted and judged for generations based on the color of my skin, where I was born, or how I came to exist. I can’t. I have no experiences to pull from. I can get a tiny bit close by being a woman who was taught, and who has taught, to hold her car keys between her fingers to use as a weapon if needed. To never walk alone in a dark parking lot. To avoid eye contact with men in an elevator.
I can’t imagine the fury of the persecution generation after generation based on my melanin. I can’t.
I can relate to the fury of being a parent and my child didn’t do as I asked when I asked so I yelled, or slammed, or slapped, or spanked out of frustration. Simply because a child didn’t do what I wanted.
It’s not the same, but it’s as close as I can get. That’s how easy my life is.
Here’s what I can do. I can educate myself.