We should not have to tell you, we should not have to teach you, that we are the very image of God. You should see God when you see us.

But you worship a pale deformed perversion of God that mirrors your biases.

I find myself saying again: We affirm that black lives matter and are sacred in the face of actions that communicate the opposite. This is not a philosophical conversation on the value of all life because all life is not equally imperiled in the United States of America.

We are your fellow citizens, your neighbors, your sisters and brothers sharing a common humanity, we are all children of the same God.

I should not have to remind you that we who are blessed with radiant blackness are the image of God.

When you grind our faces into the dirt, you grind the very face of God into the dirt.

When you slaughter us you slaughter God.

Whether we share a religious worldview or not we are co-citizens of a common humanity.

We call on you to live up to and into your own humanity by respecting our humanity and that of our children.

On days like today I think you would rather slaughter God than accept that she is black like me.