‘A building should not be more important than a life’

April Rozier doesn’t condone looting, but she’s sure the outrage is about something bigger than the damage done.

“I believe that you are not concerned about your Old Navy,” she said in a video she posted on Instagram. “I believe that you are not concerned about your Target and the buildings and the items.

“I believe what is happening to you is you are living in fear, because your way of life, your way of thinking, your peace, is being challenged right now.”

April and I became friends in 2012 when she was stage manager for a show my son was in at Greasepaint Youtheatre in Scottsdale. She’s an choreographer and stage manager. And she’s black.

Look at entertainment, April said in the video.

“Some of your favorite musicals — ‘Hamilton,’ ‘Les Miz’ — they’re all about revolution,” she says in the video.

“They’re all about uprising.”

“When the barricade happens and the shooting and the fires and stuff happen, y’all applaud,” she said. “But when it comes to real life, when it comes to black lives, now there’s a problem.”

April moved to Harlem in 2018. She’s founder of Black Theater Kids, a nonprofit that works to increase representation and provide diversity training and scholarships.

The kids she’s worked with call her about what’s happening now. April answers patiently. Theater kids are among the most inclusive people she knows.

In her video, April encouraged people to ask, “Is it that I am heartbroken over the buildings, or is it that I am afraid that what I’ve suspected of myself this whole time is correct?”

That material things are more important than black lives.

What we’re seeing is how change happens. Peaceful protest didn’t work. Neither did kneeling or talking.

Now this is where we are, April said. “A building should not be more important than a human life. Period.”