The Reason

The names below might not mean anything to you, but they are the names of every unarmed black person we know about who was killed by police. Many more have been killed than the people listed here. My list starts in 1968, and back then and before that, murder was not tracked like it is today. Besides the horrific murder of black people, everyday people of color are demoralized, discounted, overlooked, looked down upon, and forgotten. Rarely is our real history taught in school.

Maybe if the police could have seen these black people as fully human, they would have reacted differently.

I know I am only 13 years old, but I see how differently people like me are treated. I watched the group of people storm the capital, and I wondered, how would things have been different if all those people had been black? I want to help people in power see beyond a person’s skin color and see the whole person. If the police had known that some of the people listed here liked the same things as them, had kids, loved their family, laughed at the same shows, maybe their outcome would have been different. Maybe they liked to watch cartoons with their kids, loved to take in stray dogs that had no homes, always went shopping for their mama, loved to hike and birdwatch, loved to play video games or any other little fact that made them human. Maybe if the police saw them as like-minded people that wanted a good life, then the police would not have been so afraid of them and felt the only choice they had was to kill them.

I listed the names and faces here to remember. I am telling stories of other people of color so they have a chance at a different outcome. I want to help.