Editor’s Note — Eric Ward is a senior fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center. In this column, he presents a very personal view of how he sees the recent protests that have reached across Kansas and the United States.

I understand the rage. I was in 4th grade the first time I was chased by police. My best friend got caught; I did not. His life ended up very different from mine, in part because I ran faster than he did.

I understand the rage. I lived 10 blocks from the Signal Hill Police Department in Long Beach, Calif., where Ron Settles was found beaten and hanging from a noose in his jail cell the day after his 1981 arrest just a few blocks from my house. Two years later, I was 17, on my bike, near that very spot. A cop pulled me over, put a gun to my head, and said, “I could kill you right now and no one would care.”

By 1992 when a jury acquitted four officers in the brutal beating of Rodney King, I was a student leader at the University of Oregon, helping to organize protests in response. Within a week, I and other Black leaders would be hiding off campus, unable to go to classes for fear of being served by a grand jury summons. In 1999 I was among the first wave to get pepper sprayed and hit by bullets in the Battle of Seattle.

Later my work in philanthropy gave me the chance to shift institutional resources to fund grassroots infrastructure to challenge police bru tality, through the Ford Foundation and cofounding Funders for Justice.

Engaging in disciplined protest and systemic change doesn’t mean I don’t understand the rage. Months after starting a job in philanthropy, I’m in my fancy suit in a line of people exiting the train at Grand Central Station. A white guy pushes me out of line. I push back. He comes after me. I lock his arms down to his side. Through the music in my headphones I hear him say, “Let me go. I’m a cop.” I release one of his

I release one of his arms so he can show me his badge, if he has one. He pulls his badge out from under his shirt. I let him go but I’m furious. I keep yelling at him, waiting for the police to show up en masse. I’m so angry I don’t even care. If this is how I die, I think, this is how I die. No other cops come and I proceed to the office. Most of the folks I work with are unmoved by my story.

So I understand the rage. You follow the rules and yet injustice after injustice just keeps on coming. But even as I sit here in a rage that makes it difficult to be rational, I can see that there’s more going on than the language of the unheard, as Dr. King described rioting at times like this.

There are accelerationists on the right and the left exploiting our rage. Trump has tweeted his intention to designate antifa as a terrorist organization. The distraction of chaos can cloud our view. Which is why I have to testify to what is clearly at stake in this moment.

America is on a precipice. Whether we go over the edge into the abyss of a full-blown authoritarian state or find firm ground on which to construct an inclusive democracy depends on what we do right now. We need to be clear: every word and every action has consequence. This is what I see today, from my home in Portland,

This is what I see today, from my home in Portland, Ore., where I pray my neighbors’ late-night loud music doesn’t bring the police to my block. From my work with Western States Center and Southern Poverty Law Center, responding to the rise of white nationalism and a far-right authoritarian state. From deep in my bones, where I’ve been living the reality of police brutality my whole life.

Next week: Twenty-one things those committed to inclusive democracy can do right now.