Stephon Clark

March 29, 2018

I wrote these words recently about the current gun control debate in the wake of the Parkland shootings: "Even for kids who never experience a school shooting, the looming, daily threat of violence in their lives damages and traumatizes them.  We have to do better, and not give in to the cynical view that violence against our children is inevitable." As I wrote those lines, it reinforced for me how so many African-American kids have already been experiencing this trauma for a very long time.  And that never before had I truly, viscerally understood the outrage that a mother could feel at her child's lack of safety.

And now we have the Stephon Clark shooting.  A young--do I even need to say it--unarmed 22-year-old father shot in his grandparents' back yard.  It's infuriating--just as the Trayvon Martin shooting was infuriating, and the Ramarley Graham shooting was infuriating, and all that came before and followed.

Today Stephon Clark is being laid to rest, and we all mourn.  Because all of our children are all of our children.