On Ferguson

Matt Rexroad doesn’t see the point.

“I can't imagine an issue that would make me want to march in the street,” the Yolo County supervisor tweeted on August 17. “Doesn't seem productive.”

Rexroad's comment wasn't just insensitive, it was offensively clueless. Clueless about what it means to be a person of color in the United States. Clueless about what it means to engage in civil protest. Apparently, Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington wasn't “productive.”

Not that Rexroad, a white male, seems to feel any urgent need to brush up on the history of change.

As a white woman, I'll probably never know what it means to experience racism or to fear for my safety because of the color of my skin. Unlike Rexroad, however, I'm at once stunned, angered, heartbroken and heartened by the actions I've seen unfold on the streets of Ferguson, Mo.

It's been more than a week since a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager there, and in the days and nights since—amid questions and accusations, power shifts, curfews and autopsy reports—people have taken to the streets to demand answers.

And thanks to those documenting the events—journalists, social-media users, et al.—the rest of the country has taken notice. Many have also joined in, staging marches, vigils and protests in a demand for change, answers and justice.

For Trayvon Martin. For Oscar Grant. For Renisha McBride. For Michael Brown.

You don't have to experience racism firsthand to feel outraged, to feel empathy, to understand that now is the time for a bigger conversation about race and class and equality. The marches and protests and vigils on the streets of Ferguson and around the country have sparked that conversation.

That's pretty damn productive.