Thank God Ralph Yarl lives. He is an eldest child; he was picking up his siblings in Kansas City, Missouri. It was just an errand. And he got lost. And he went to the wrong house. A door. A shot—he collapsed—and then another. An 84-year-old man put a bullet in his young head. And Ralph Yarl stumbled for help to another home. He saved his own life. Clearly, this is an extraordinary child.
It is 2023. Over the past 10 years (and even longer if we count the time before the mainstream media covered our devastation), millions of people have filled the streets and raised open palms or right fists to protest the premature deaths of Black innocents. They have shouted slogans. Some among us have given speeches, offered commentary, written books or columns (here is another one, a drop in an ocean of transcribed tears). In 2019, I published a book called Breathe: A Letter to My Sons, speaking to the terror and grace of raising Black children in the United States, and people said to me, “The book is so prescient.” But there is no bad time for a book about Black fear and grace in the face of terror. The examples are seasonal, monthly, sometimes even weekly. By now, the world knows.
Sisyphus, that figure of Greek mythology, rolled the stone up the hill, and then the stone rolled back down. And he started over. It felt futile, exhausting. But this is uglier. It is a dizzying spiral of tragedy. We are angry, devastated, confused, over and over again—and each time, we must snap into action. We step into the choreography: We know what to post; we listen for word on where to be; we know what to wait for, who will speak. We watch the press conference; we debate the trolls; we opine; we wail; we complain; we bicker; we insist, insist, insist. All of this is done with a nagging doubt that turns into bitter gall. We know that all the awareness and outrage in the world hasn’t changed things. Our need for action is a sorrowful distraction from the reality that even after the trial of the man charged in Ralph’s shooting has run its course (if there is one), this country will break our hearts again.
Nauseated, I think this: At least in Jim Crow–era sundown towns, there were ostensibly safe hours to be Black on the street. Now? Each day and every hour, we are balls bouncing along a roulette wheel. Remember back when we used to think we could offer protective advice to keep our children safe? Show your hands, no sudden movements, no running. We were so naive then, and hopeful.
I ask, how are the people in this nation so adjusted to Black folks suffering? And then I think: That, too, is naive. The Nashville school shooting just happened. Unquestionably, racism makes our experience as Black Americans more frightening, more dangerous. But they won’t even save their own children. All of our kids are coming of age in a society in crisis. And certain antisocial forces—the ones who make and sell and protect guns, the ones who reject knowledge, the ones who believe that their homes are castles but make terrible rules for other peoples’ bodies, the ones who believe that some of us are ordained to inferiority and vote that way—are trying their darndest to prevent all of our children from growing up and maturing into the kind of people who can make this democracy functional. And people keep putting them in power.
Thank God Ralph Yarl lives. I whispered it to myself as my own 16-year-old son drove us home from his school today. He asked me for directions, even though he knows the route. Teenagers have a lot on their minds. I wonder if he and Ralph will be friends one day. They both have sweet faces. I love teenagers. It’s part of why I teach college students. They are funny, imaginative, and wise, but also bumbling, stubborn, and sophomoric. Basically, they are gloriously human. And yet, I look at my child with his hands on the wheel and I cannot help but yearn for his infancy again, back when I could strap him against my chest and protect him. Then I remember, I am no safer than he is. All we have is each other.
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