Last week, my boss' mom was in the office. She is a breeder of poodles. She had a new midnight black, short-haired, female pup who apparently was going through her second adolescent "fear impact" period. We all greeted the young dog in excitement and crowded around her. I am one of two African American employees at my job, the other was not around. The older woman, my boss' mother, hollered across the room at me "can you pet her?" I'm not normally that comfortable around dogs I don't know so I guess she sensed my hesitation. In the spirit of encouragement she said "she's never met a black person before, I want to see how she reacts." With those words I think I experienced a "fear impact" period. I was put into a cage to fist fight my equal counterpart to the death like my Mandingo ancestors. I was chained and told to get on all fours, my knuckles beating against gravel like the monkey I was. I was Henrietta Lacks, my rights taken away, petted and prodded for the love of science and experimentation. This may seem dramatic and in the depths of my own psyche, I thought I may have been over reacting so I stayed silent and petted the head of the damn dog and when I did, and when the dog responded positively, she stood, in shock. She beamed a bright smile full of whitish teeth and said "she likes you! She likes you! She's so happy to have finally met someone her color!!" I work at a Christian summer camp, as a lifeguard on a lake, so yes, I have gotten tan. The sun has called the ghosts of ex slaves and former queens and kings to sit atop my skin and make my mahogany richer, and darker, and fuller, more robust. My skin glows. But, this dog, was as dark as the cargo deck of a slave ship at night, as dark as the deepest depths of the ocean that ship traveled across as dark as the forest those same slaves would run through at midnight for hundreds and thousands of miles in hope of freedom. And yet again, I thought, I was being compared to an animal. The likes of me. A purebred poodle puppy, well wasn't I lucky? That was my purpose wasn't it? I was put on earth to make a dog more comfortable? My skin was so dark so that an animal could feel kinship to me? Again I thought, "maybe I'm overreacting" but I then thought about the times when I've had people that I called my friends ask me to "talk ghetto," or to show them the latest hip hop dance move. Then I thought of how she expected the dog to be afraid of me, and realized that she may have some merit behind her thought process; because we know that Trayvon Martin's killer was afraid of him and Eric Garner's of him and Rekia Boyd's of her. Emmett Till's murderers were afraid that at only 14 years old his dark mahogany skin and charming black man smile would take their woman and then maybe their lives so he was made equal to animals-- lynched and then fed to expecting gators, because you see, In the antebellum south, gators had filling diets. Took in more calories than 100 negroes combined-- they ate black children. Although Emmett Till's death was not in the antebellum south, it was in what was supposed to be The United States of America-- home of the free, because of the brave. So I then realized maybe her surprise was valid. The fact that her dog saw me as just another human being was both shocking and amazing, the fact that she did not cower in fright was a world wonder. Don't tell me that all lives matter. My life doesn't matter in this country, in this society I am fighting for the right to exist every single day without being compared to a dog. Everyday young black men fight to survive period. They fight to get home when pulled over by cops who are made to feel uncomfortable and unsafe because of their blackness, the color of their skin is where all the danger lies. I don't think we get around to addressing the content of their character until the memorial service. My ancestors were 3/5 of people and generations after them boycotted buses and sat at lunch counters and now we march. Do not silence my cry or belittle my struggle because my purebred, short-haired, dark as night cousin and I are not having it. I am more than kin to a dog, I come from the strongest group of people on the planet and I will continue the struggle, I will continue to fight for us. Black Lives do Matter, and we will show you just how much.