Proving Your Pain

Today I called an airline for a refund on a flight I had scheduled prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was quite an ordeal.

In November 2019, I bought tickets to travel to Austin, TX, in May 2020. I had no clue that I would be diagnosed with breast cancer weeks later, how expensive cancer be as I worked to improve and maintain my quality of life, how challenging it would be to interact with medical providers and loved ones, how much pressure it is to take care of others even when I needed care, how the COVID-19 pandemic would intersect with my cancer and fertility treatment, how emotional freezing my eggs would be, and how George Floyd’s murder would place the United States’ racism under a magnifying glass in ways that reminded me of the ways others and myself have experienced racism in this country.

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Where Are the Black Perspectives?

George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Tony McDade. Ahmaud Arbery. Atatiana Jefferson … Charleena Lyles, Korryn Gaines. Philando Castile. Sandra Bland. Freddie Gray. Michael Brown, Natasha McKenna … Trayvon Martin … Rodney King … Emmett Till. 

You may be familiar with some of these names more than others. We do not know about you, but we cannot accept this list getting longer.

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Lunch with Lindsay: Work, Social Media, White Supremacy, Systemic Change, Global Movements, Elections, and Parenting During a Pandemic

If you couldn’t tell by now, the titles for my blog posts are getting really long. There is so much to discuss in the world that short titles do not seem fitting anymore.

When I first started Unfiltered Snapshot five years ago, you could tell by my earlier posts that it was meant to serve as a place for advice. The first post is titled Are You Really Looking for Advice? The tagline originally was “Raw Advice for Real Life.” That was the intention.

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Lunch with Lindsay: Supporting Black Lives Matter and Practicing Self-Care

Is it just me, or did last week feel pretty long?

Actually, if you are like many people in my social circles who have been heavily engaged in the active work of racial justice, the last few decades have felt extremely long.

I both am encouraged to see more people fighting for racial justice—especially Black lives—in ways I have not seen in my lifetime, and I also am frustrated that this journey to progress is both so long and mentally and emotionally taxing for those involved. This is why when I saw the NPR Code Switch piece titled A Decade of Watching Black People Die, I thought to myself, “A decade? JUST a decade?” I decided not to listen to it.

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Lunch with Lindsay: Processing Racial Injustice in the US During a Pandemic

If you’re like me, you have been enduring a wide range of thoughts and emotions for the past week.

George Floyd.

Breonna Taylor.

Tony McDade.

Ahmaud Arbery.

The incident with Amy Cooper and Christian Cooper.

I don’t even need to write in full sentences. Many of you know most, if not all, of the names I listed.

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