July 9, 2014

The Suffrage of the Babies




I think this ordeal resonates with me because I am a child born in the 60's and I have teen boys. My father was raised in Chicago's segregated Bronzeville during the 1930's and still speaks agitatedly about the disparities racial inequality brings, and how dangerous it was traveling the United States with his High School's basketball team during his youth.

Young men of color are always at risk of retaliation of some sort
; hate-crimes, police brutality - or simply breathing around someone intolerant.

All of this made me think ... so if we sit idle while others in uniform abuse handcuffed children, even if it is thousands of miles away, what are we really saying? 

Yes, in this particular matter, it is centuries-on-top-of-centuries old debate that none of us can figure out, but it is so painful! Do we just, after throwing up our hands so often for so long, simply let it be?

How sad though, because Emmett, Trayvon, Jordan, Eyal, Gilad, Neftali, Tarek ... they all deserved to be safe ... All of our children deserve to be safe, if only for a little while during their formative youths. 


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