Lucas Camilo

We owe a bigger update on Lucas’s life here, and that’s coming soon.  But for now we thought we’d just share highlights from yesterday’s march and rally against police brutality in Seattle.

We’ve both been feeling a lot of grief and anger about the incredible violence and injustice suffered by Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and hundreds of thousands of black people in this country.  The two of us were able to go out to a powerful march the day after the Ferguson decision, and it felt good to be out with other Seattlites briefly shutting down business-as-usual and demanding racial justice.  Yesterday the conditions were right — a family-friendly march near our home, with clear skies — to take Lucas with us.  During the preliminary rally he was a little nervous, but once we got up high where he could look out and get a sense of the action, he got excited.  When he saw the march start (and it looked to him a bit like a parade), he decided that despite the noise and slight chaos, we should join in.  We only made it 10 or 12 blocks, but Lucas was grinning and chanting along, and the fact that he got to roll alongside a marching Harriet (a little dog friend he had previously met) made it all the better.  Listening to the chants, he eventually asked what “black lives matter” means, as well as “What is police?”  So we tried our best to begin a Lucas-level conversation about race and justice, but of course we got about five seconds of his attention.  We’d love to hear from other parents how you’re talking to your kids.  In the mean time, here are some shots and video from the march: