A seven-year-old Black girl steps into the teargas-filled, bottle-strewn no-man’s-land between protesters and police.
The riotous crowd grows silent as she walks up to one of the heavily armored, paint-spattered officers.
“Does my life matter?” she asks.
“Yes, it does,” he replies.
“Do Black lives matter?”
“Yes, they do.”
“Do you promise not to stop or arrest me for no reason, or shoot or kill me or my brother because we’re Black?”
“I promise.”
She turns to the crowd and says, “You can go home now. I fixed it. They promised.”
If only.