Sunday afternoon, November 22, was a relaxing day until I heard a rustling sound on my front porch. I shot up, looked out the window, and saw a white male on my porch. He was ripping the large banner my neighbor had hand-painted that read “Defund the Police. Invest in Black Communities.” I grabbed my phone and ran outside barefooted in the hope that I’d catch him on video, but he sped off on his moped. I stood on the sidewalk in shock, looked at the street, and saw our banner torn in two. I picked it up, and a Black woman who worked for Duke Transit said she’d seen what happened. She’d told him he shouldn’t have done that. He’d yelled back, “Fuck you, n*****,” as he rode away. Later that night, I found a stun gun in our yard, close to the porch. This summer, we watched the Black Lives Matter murals in downtown Durham get defaced with racist slurs.
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