Nobody Is Asking You to Be an Activist

Nobody is asking you to be an activist.

No one is asking you to organize a march, lead a chant, or put your body on the front line if that is not your calling. No one is asking you to abandon your life, your work, or your sense of self. But what is being asked, what has been asked for generations, is that you stop sitting out.

Because sitting out is not neutral.

We have watched our nation mobilize in real time. We saw it in the uprisings following the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. We saw just how swiftly grief turned into outrage, how quickly empathy became action, how readily people gathered, spoke up, demanded answers, demanded accountability. We have proven, without question, that when the moment feels close enough, familiar enough, or relatable enough, we know exactly how to respond. Except...

It is not lost on the Black community that even in that moment, Keith Porter, Jr. was missed.

Missed in the chants. Missed in the headlines. Missed in the urgency. And we know this pattern is not accidental. When Black people are murdered in the street by the very systems sworn to protect them, the response is often slower, quieter, more conditional. The silence stretches longer. The empathy thins out. The benefit of the doubt is extended, just not to the victim. Or we hear an iteration of the infamous "I don't know how to help..."

And that silence! Your silence, our silence! It sets the decorum for what we are witnessing today. None of this started in modern times. It didn’t start with the most recent headline or the most recent video that made your stomach drop. It started with the long, sustained refusal to stand in Black pain when it was inconvenient, uncomfortable, or costly. It started when grief was politicized instead of humanized. When decorum mattered more than dignity. When “now isn’t the time” became the most effective tool of delay.

I am a Black woman. I am an activist. And I am telling you plainly: I am not asking you to become one. What I am asking you to do is get activated.

Activation does not require a megaphone. It requires presence. It requires honesty. It requires you to locate your entry point and step into it with intention. Activation means you don’t look away. You don’t minimize. You don’t wait for a “better” moment that never comes. You stop pretending that humanity needs to come with an instruction manual. You allow yourself to be changed by what you are witnessing, and you let that change move your feet, your voice, your resources, your influence.

Because while some tragedies spark national uprisings, Black families are burying their loved ones in near silence.

As recently as late 2025, lives have been stolen. We say Ase for Rajon Belt-Stubblefield. Rashaud Johnson. Kory Dillard. Jalin Seabron. Kilyn Lewis. Jor’Dell Richardson.

In our local streets of Colorado, these are not distant stories. These are not historical footnotes. These are present-tense wounds. And yet, so often, the response is muted. The outrage is outsourced. The solidarity is theoretical.

There is a particular violence in watching people show up loudly for one tragedy and disappear quietly for another.

There is harm in selective solidarity. And there is something especially cruel about what happens after the protests end. After the signs are put away. After the social media posts slow down. After those who were never meant to carry this grief return to comfort, routine, and normalcy, while Black families return to burial plots, courtrooms, and unanswered questions.

That retreat back to comfort is not neutral either. It is another lash on the backs of communities who have been screaming for change for so long their voices are hoarse. It sends a clear message: your pain was momentary for me; it is lifelong for you. And the Black community is not immune to the self-inflicted wounds. Among us are individuals who choose to look away, to avoid because it is "too hard to watch", or the worst of it, echo the same sentiments we hear from those who uphold white misanthropy.

Standing up does not mean you do everything. It means you do something, consistently. It means you stay after the cameras leave. It means you listen to the people who live this oppression out loud the loudest and resist the urge to correct their tone, rush their healing, or manage their grief so it feels more palatable.

It means you stop asking what is “appropriate” and start asking what is necessary.

If you cried for Renee. If you marched for Alex. If your heart broke open watching a life be taken too soon, then you already know how to be moved.

You already have the muscle. The question is whether you are willing to use it when the victim does not look like you, live like you, or fit neatly into a narrative you understand.

Nobody is asking you to be an activist.

But history will ask what you did when you knew better. Find your entry point. Stay longer than is comfortable. Let your solidarity be inconvenient. And whatever you do, stop sitting out.