The last thing anyone wants in the morning is a stranger shooting at you with a shotgun when you’re just trying to get a ride to school. (Then) 14 year-old Brennan Walker didn’t have a very good morning.
Back in April, when he missed his school bus, he went to a neighbor’s house to get directions, and he was met with a shotgun blast. Fortunately, the teen was not hit and he is alive. Currently Jeffrey Zeigler, the shooter, is at trial and the jurors are reviewing the security video, which features a teenager keeping a four foot distance while asking for directions, and then a violent older white man running after him with a shotgun. Oh, what a beautiful morning.
In stark contrast, in August 2017, a feel-good story was passed around about a black teen who missed his bus in Kansas City, MO and knocked on every door in the neighborhood. Brian Smith, a complete stranger to him, was the first to answer. The teen told him that he’d just missed his bus and asked for a ride. Smith gave it no second thought and jumped in the car and took him. It was sweet. It made us all feel better for a second.
The glaring difference between these stories is that the shooter in the first was an older white man, and the good Samaritan in the second was a younger black man. But these differences do not justify the wildly different endings.
In both of these cases, these teens were making positive and proactive decisions to get to school by any means necessary. One ended in a sweet anecdote that will likely be remembered and passed on; the other, a near-death experience that will cause lasting trauma.
According to the Hamilton Project, black male high school dropouts have a nearly 70% risk of being imprisoned. A lot of this is due to over-incarceration of African Americans as a whole, but on the education side--if these teens are met with hostility while actively trying to attain an education, it will be one more hurdle in their journey. High school is difficult enough without people aiming shotguns at you.
The irony is by targeting a specific group because you are assuming they are criminals, you may very well be creating one.
We are responsible, as a society, to ensure the success of everyone—especially those who need it most.
If you’re able to, here is a proactive move on behalf of two proactive teens who decided to (unknowingly) risk their lives to get to school:
Donate now to the Black Youth Project.