Eric is signed with McDonald/Selznick Associates theatrically and has started studying with Susan Giosa at the Susan Giosa Acting Workshop.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

It has been such an incredible year of reflection, transition, and transformation. As a mixed person I have been particularly stimulated by the injustices that have been brought to light via social media and the BLM movement. I was able to visit the George Floyd memorial this past summer where I experienced a flood of emotions, most of which humbled me and my experience as a person of color in this country who also has white privilege. Here are some of my thoughts:

On the corner of 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis the people of the city have erected and constructed a memorial to the late George Floyd, whose death has ignited a worldwide civil rights battle.  I was humbled to visit the space today. These are MY people, I am as much black as I am white but I haven’t realized how much my white-passing privilege has protected me all my life. I am so mad. My brothers and sisters have been killed for centuries at the hand of the white man and the police and I have frolicked about subconsciously knowing that “it won’t happen to me” because I don’t look like George Floyd or Breonna Taylor or Trayvon Martin. I have always thought it was cool to be a mixed kid. However, I am realizing that I haven’t always found PRIDE in being mixed. In being BLACK & white and Cherokee indian. I want to hold myself accountable to that fact and if anything that I have the PRIVILEGE to speak up even more. I realize now that two parts of my identity are among the most oppressed people in America. Black and indigenous Native American. And for most of my life I have allowed the WHITE part of myself to suppress those other beautiful and colorful parts of WHO I AM!