Baltimore.

I’m not black, and I’ve never been persecuted for my skin color. But. I know what it’s like to endure years of unrelenting abuse at the hands of power.

If you’ve never experienced it, if your mind can’t grasp the scale, then maybe this personal story will help you understand.

My mother beat the shit out of me from 3 to 13. CRUNCH! There’s no suitable onomatopoeia for the sound of an adult’s hand belting a child across the face. There’s no word that describes what it’s like to feel your cartilage ring. She’d backhand me across the face for nothing, out of nowhere. She’d beat me with whatever was handy — spoon, belt, hand — and she’d always scream at me that it was my fault. I made her do it. There was always a reason, always a transgression. “You’re only hurting yourself!” CRACK!

By the time I was…