This Is Us

Our Pain Is Not Your Classroom

It’s your wake-up call

The author’s daughter, Olivia, visiting a memorial for Heather Heyer, a white woman who was murdered while protesting white supremacy in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I stopped talking one Friday afternoon when I was four years old. My mother followed me around all weekend, trying to make sense of what had happened to her loquacious girl with the light in her eyes.

On Sunday evening, the levees broke. Through tears, I explained that my preschool teacher had stood me…