I’m not a big fan of artificial holidays made to market products for us to consume. But if we can turn the message around and use it as a point of unity and struggle, well let’s do it.

A sad fact of life for parents and caregivers of color in New York City, and throughout the country really, is that we have to teach our children about what to do when stopped by the police. Through the Stop and Frisk program, NYPD officers conducted 685,724 street stops in 2011, a more than 600 percent increase since Mayor Bloomberg’s first year in office. Over 4 million people have been stopped, a hugely disproportionate number of them are black and Latino, and over 90% of them are completely innocent. Incredibly, the number of stops of young black men in 2011 was higher than the total population of young black men living in the city.

I don’t have any children that identify as male, but not a day goes by that I send my child to a NYC public high school and worry about her safety, especially with NYPD in charge of school security.

This Sunday, June 17th in New York City there will be a silent march to end the Stop and Frisk program, and to stop racial profiling. Weather permitting I’ll be marching with the People’s Justice Coalition. The march jumps off around 3 pm from 110th St. and 5th Ave. in Harlem.