Ah Shi Beauty owner joins protest in Houston

WINDOW ROCK

Ahsaki LaFrance-Chachere and her husband Dennis Chachere took bitter powder and grabbed their masks before heading to a peaceful protest in Houston last Friday.

Hundreds of protesters marched to city hall to demand justice.

It was one of hundreds of Black Lives Matter protests that erupted across the United States after the murder of George Floyd, 46, by four Minneapolis police officers.

One officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds as Floyd pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. This can be seen in a video from a bystander that went viral on social media.

Police were called when Floyd allegedly used a counterfeit $20 bill to make a purchase at a local convenience store.

Two autopsy reports concluded Floyd’s death was a homicide but disagree on cause of death, according to the AP.

Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after massive protests across the country that demanded justice for Floyd. The other three officers, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, are under investigation.

LaFrance-Chachere, who is Tábąąhá born for Naahiłii, and grew up in Ganado, Arizona, said she was demanding justice not only for Floyd but for the countless people of color who have been victims of senseless violence at the hands of the police.

“I guess the world finally was, like, ‘enough is enough,’ because all the videos have been shared and it’s clear as day what has happened but there’s still no justice,” LaFrance-Chachere said in a phone interview. “I love the fact that it’s just not just a Black movement but it’s everybody there.”

Despite making up just 13% of the U.S. population, African-Americans make up 24% of those killed by police, according to reports by Mapping Police Violence. African-Americans are three times as likely to be killed by police as the population at large.

Utah leads the nation with the highest per capita killing of African-Americans by police at a disproportionate rate of 9.2 percent. In Utah, African-Americans make up just one percent of the population but 10 percent of killings by police.

The rate of violent crimes cannot be used to determine police violence. The two are seemingly unrelated, according to a database created by Mapping Police Violence.

In 2019, there were only 29 days where police did not kill someone.

“When will people be held accountable for taking lives?” LaFrance-Chachere wondered. “It’s on national TV. How much proof do those people need to charge people? What if it was on the other side? What if a Native cop did this to a white person? What would happen to that Native? What if it was a Black cop and they did this to a white person?

“Oh, my God, they would’ve been charged instantly before the sun went down with first degree murder, no bond. Done deal, throw away the key.”

As a Navajo and African-American woman, this moment in time has been hard for her.

Then add on being a small business owner who has to be aware of how her personal actions affect her business, Ah Shi Beauty, a beauty and makeup company based in Window Rock, Arizona.

“As a business owner as well, it was a really tricky moment for me because, like, do I put myself out there?” she said. “Not only do I represent myself but also represent a brand.”

Regardless, she felt it was her duty to speak on the issue of police brutality and to support the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I got some backlash but I’m at a point where it’s like, you know what? I’d rather stand for what is right because right is right and wrong is wrong,” she said.

People who follow her page on Instagram have told her “All lives matter,” a phrase created in opposition to “Black Lives Matter.”

“When people use that ‘all lives matter’ stuff on me, it’s just, like, I get that,” she said. “You’re right, all lives matter. But what about this man’s life? What about all the other people who lost their life from police brutality and through hate crimes?”

LaFrance-Chachere has faced discrimination by police. She and her husband were stopped and interrogated for two hours by police in Tennessee as they were driving back from Georgia. The couple was picking up a horse in Kentucky. Dennis Chachere works and competes in the rodeo industry.

“The cop was asking us who we were, what kind of drugs we had. Who was my husband? And are we really married? How long (had we) been married?” she remembered. “Like, why are you pulling us over? Why are you interrogating us?”

LaFrance-Chachere said the couple was pulled over for seemingly no reason as they weren’t speeding or breaking any laws. The officers did search their horse trailer and found nothing.

“It’s terrifying,” she said. “Every single time you see those lights, you get pulled over, you don’t know if you’re going to live or not.”

The couple has made it a habit to call one another if they are pulled over by police. This is their reality as a couple and why they are participating in peaceful protests.

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