Pendeton’s Black Lives Matter protest organizer Lacey Barnett, 18, a 2020 Pendleton Heights High School graduate, answered several questions posed by The Times-Post on Friday, the day before the event.

Why did you decide to have the march?

Obviously, I grew up most of my life in Pendleton. I went to Pendleton schools, participating in club sports there, and I actually wanted to attend the protest in Indianapolis (but couldn’t). So I talked to a few of my friends, and I was like “Hey, I really want to do this. I think it’ll be great for our community,” because, even though Pendleton has a very small black community, we still need to show support for them in these very uncertain times.

And so I decided “Yeah, I’m going to do this for them, so that way future generations don’t have to do it as well.” There’s no reason somebody shouldn’t feel safe going out with their friends or their family, why someone should feel scared or frightened when they get pulled over by the police … basically because they have a different skin color than I do. It’s 2020. Why is this still happening?

So, that’s why I wanted to do it. Not because I felt that I had to but because I wanted to. Because I wanted to show that there’s more than just black people fighting for their rights — there’s people from all different races fighting for basic rights for somebody because of their skin color. I have friends and family who are black, and they should feel safe doing things that I know I feel safe doing. I have cousins who have married black people, their children are mixed, and I love them to death, and it’d break my heart to see them suffer through inequality and injustice because of the color of their skin.

Do you have help with this from other people?

I originally decided the date, stuff like that, I was like the main organizer, if you will. But then all I did was I typed up the information, and I sent it to them, and I said, “Would you please post this on social media, get as many people as you can involved, the more who show up the better because it doesn’t read as well if it’s just four or five teenagers standing in Pendleton.” So I asked them “Ask your parents, have them post it on Facebook. Ask your pastor, have them get involved as well, to show that we are in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, because the bottom line is, though all lives matter, they don’t matter until black lives matter.” So, I had them post it on their social media … there were two ladies who actually reached out to me and asked “Hey, if you need any help, or you need contact with anyone, please, just let us know,” and they were very helpful in getting us in contact with someone from the Black Lives Matter movement in Indy, so we kind of clarified what exactly the goal of this was, what we wanted to do as a community, for this peaceful protest, if you will.

How many people are you expecting there to be?

With as many people saying they’re going to be there, anywhere from 30 to 50 — if more show up, great. I know my whole family is going to be there; the two women that I spoke to are going to be there with their families; there are some people who can’t make it because of the virus going on and all that, which is totally understandable. So I know there a lot of people supporting this protest tomorrow, and they’re there in spirit even if they can’t be there is person.

Have you ever participated in a protest before?

I have not. I’ve wanted to, like, things like PRIDE in Indianapolis in June. Obviously, the Black Lives Matter movement in Indy was one of the things I’ve wanted to attend but I never got the opportunity to go. Certain social situations that I’m in support of or against, I would love to be there, in the front lines with everybody else, physically, but when it comes to basic human rights it felt like something that couldn’t be ignored. A lot of the time people think that, “Oh, it’s my opinion if I support Black Lives Matter or not,” but when it comes to someone’s basic human rights, it shouldn’t be an opinion, and that’s just the way I think of it. And so, this felt like something that, using the privilege I was born with, I should be speaking out and speaking up to make people more aware of the situation that’s going on.

This isn’t just about police rights or against police in general. This is about supporting an entire race that doesn’t have the same rights as I do as a white person. Like I said earlier, everybody should feel safe going into a restaurant, everybody should feel safe getting pulled over by the police, everyone should feel safe doing basic human things, but for many people in the black community that’s not the case, and that’s a problem.

So I wanted to … speak out and speak up, and give them, kind of like, in Pendleton, for the black community in Pendleton, kind of let them know that there is a group of us, a bunch of us that truly are there to support them and love them and show them that we are still this family, that this community backs you up and supports you, no matter who you are, no matter your age, religion, anything like that.

Are you going to be speaking to the crowd?

The ultimate goal is we’ll have people show up around 8:30 and then … we’ll try to start walking by 9. But before we walk, I’d kind of like just to say a few things — this is what this is for; this isn’t for you to, like, get violent; this isn’t for you to curse out police officers or any other people that are walking around.

This is just for us to show support to our black community here in Pendleton, and for us to show them that we do love and care for them no matter what other people think, honestly. … There’s no reason why in 2020 people are still having to fight for basic human rights. And so this is what this is, a fight for basic human rights for somebody who’s a different race than I am. … This is for them to show that they love and care for somebody no matter their skin color.

Do you see racism in Pendleton that is blatant or obvious?

I can say that I’ve heard white people use the n-word and other racial slurs, which isn’t cool … and so they’d use racial slurs like that repeatedly, and yes, they may not be racist in that sense of like saying, “Black people are evil” or whatever, (but) they are still using a derogatory term that came from racism.

I don’t think they’re necessarily racist, I just think that they’re uneducated, and I think that this Black Lives Matter movement is a good opportunity for white people to recognize that they have privilege, for white people to educate themselves, and it’s not enough to just say “Oh, I’m not racist.” You have to be anti-racism for there to really be change in the world when it comes to seeing a person of color and not immediately thinking, “Oh, they’re a black person” but thinking they’re a person that just so happens to have a deeper skin color than I do.