I try not to talk about New York too much because, goddamn it, New York is just a place people live…

I try not to talk about New York too much because, goddamn it, New York is just a place people live and we don’t have to talk about it all the time. I live here, as I have on and off for years, and it’s great, and sometimes cold, and expensive, but otherwise pretty much just like everywhere else, except with more pizza. I will give us that.

But I’ve been really into our mayor, Bill de Blasio, but like, in a very normal way, and not at all in a creepy way where I have a photo of him and his family on my refrigerator and I kissed them all at the stroke of midnight last New Year’s Eve, right at the moment he was being made mayor or anything. Just like a regular human!!! But if you don’t know, and really, there’s no reason why you should (our new slogan — New York City: Just A Place??? I will email city hall), but Blaz, as I lovingly call him, is a white man married to an African-American woman, and they have two children. I really respect de Blasio, for many reasons, but especially because he is privy to such an important struggle that many other politicians aren’t: how to keep his black children alive. He’s a white dude who balances his privilege and recognizes that not everyone has it, and is realistic about the struggles his mixed-race children might face. I’m into that.

Earlier this year, I wrote a piece for Gawker about The Talk, or how black parents prepare their children, especially for their sons, for interactions with the police. I’m consumed: I’m in an interracial relationship, and it might sound lame, but I really do look up to Blaz and Chirlane about how they are raising their children and navigating that difficult terrain. I don’t really have any other role models for that. Recently, someone asked me why I wrote that article, and who the intended audience was: honestly, it was for my white boyfriend, who cared about the problems we may face and believed my fears but genuinely had no idea about the prevalence of the police “talk” that black parents have to give. And that’s not his fault, nor is it anyone else’s, but it scared me, so I wanted to raise that awareness, because that’s the only way we’ll get some change, right? Thankfully, Blaz is right there with me, in a speech he made following the Eric Garner decision:

This is profoundly personal for me. I was at the White House the other day, and the President of the United States turned to me, and he met Dante a few months ago, and he said that Dante reminded him of what he looked like as a teenager. And he said, I know you see this crisis through a very personal lens. I said to him I did. Because Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years, about the dangers he may face. A good young man, a law-abiding young man, who would never think to do anything wrong, and yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face — we’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.

And that painful sense of contradiction that our young people see first — that our police are here to protect us, and we honor that, and at the same time, there’s a history we have to overcome, because for so many of our young people, there’s a fear. And for so many of our families, there’s a fear. So I’ve had to worry, over the years, Chirlane’s had to worry — was Dante safe each night? There are so many families in this city who feel that each and every night — is my child safe? And not just from some of the painful realities — crime and violence in some of our neighborhoods — but are they safe from the very people they want to have faith in as their protectors? That’s the reality. And it conforms to something bigger that you’ve heard come out in the protests in Ferguson, and all over the country.

Earlier today, Gawker published a list of Unarmed People of Color Killed by Police, 1999–2014. Eighteen out of 76 people were killed in New York City, the highest concentration in a single city. Here it is, all laid out: my worries, my fears, my hesitations for my future…right in my backyard. I hate that I have to talk about this, but at the same time, I never want to stop. It just warms my heart to see someone who gets it, you know? So I know I’m not alone. Thanks, Blaz.