Jacob Blake is beginning to heal through the trauma and violence he endured at the hands of police. And he has been charged sexual assault. We are called now to do something critical: to allow the possibility of him having caused harm AND insist on what he deserves as a survivor.

When we say police should not shoot people in the back, we do not mean they should not shoot innocent people, they should not shoot perfect people, they should not shoot people where there is a basis for arrest. We mean they should not shoot any people, period.

When we say we believe survivors, we do not mean that we inherently believe the system’s charges against Jacob Blake. We mean we default to believe the woman who says she was harmed. But we also mean we believe Jacob Blake as a survivor of police violence—at the same time.

America sometimes does this for white people who commit harm and whose survivorship we still hold as meaningful even in the face of the accusations against them. Our country has long proven far less capable of doing this for Black survivors and other survivors of color.

If we feel torn by concurrent truths, it is not the truth that is tearing us—it is a criminal justice system designed to rip people down the center to divide them into good and bad. None of us are either. All of us are both. Nothing that denies that will ever be justice.