Policing and Punishing America’s Saddest Generation

Let’s start with Chicago, where I live: A few hundred young people spilled out into the streets of the city recently, during our first burst of warm spring weather. In the midst of the frenetic activity of the teens, there were injuries, including two people shot. If you did not know these were Black children from footage or photos, you would know by the language white people — and, of course, not only white people, but we are by far the loudest in this conversation — use to describe them. Variations of “animal” dominate, but there are a whole lot of other horrible words spewing out of hateful mouths as well. I’d like to spend a little time describing this dynamic here, in my city, because the details matter, but you can find a version of this in every major city in the country. I am talking about an American pathology that we are all aware of but seem to be unable to free ourselves from. It begins with a distorted lens through which we view and judge the actions of various groups. <a href="https://aninjusticemag.com/our-reaction-to-americas-saddest-generation-is-to-police-punish-597dfeeb056c">Read More</a>