I Changed My Mind
I love you too much for that
I wrote this on Threads this week (light edits for flow):
Hear me out: Nolan was 18. "My baby would never" is easy to say, but we all know we can't control for what they do when we aren't around. In a world that knows terrorizing Black kids is easy sport? We raise em, we let em go, and they get killed for Skittles, for having the wrong friends, for being in the wrong car.
Black children and Black youth should have the same freedom to explore the world all others do.
That they don't is suffocating and terrifying. So we dark laugh into what we hope will prevent what we can't control.
But it can happen to all of ours. What a horror story. I feel sick.
I know EXACTLY who to blame. All the rest is just harm reduction.
I take it back.
I was responding to a conversation developing online—as it does in the face of violence we feel helpless to control— about what Nolan's parents did, didn't, should or shouldn't have allowed their son to do.
The issue? Should Nolan have been allowed or raised to see it acceptable to go on a trip with an all white (including at least one white-presenting Latino) group.