Our nation is grieving following the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubrey, and Breonna Taylor. We are heartbroken, but Black Americans know this is nothing new. For generations, Black and brown communities have been dying at the hands of racism…
Our nation is grieving following the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubrey, and Breonna Taylor. We are heartbroken, but Black Americans know this is nothing new. For generations, Black and brown communities have been dying at the hands of racism and white supremacy, and have also been the disproportionate victims of gun violence and violence, perpetuated often by the police. These recent murders, and the countless others that don’t make headlines, are horrific, as is Donald Trump’s reckless, racist, and incendiary rhetoric calling for additional gun violence. During a time of crisis we need our leaders to speak out forcefully against racism and hatred and work to bring the American people together with empathy, compassion, and calls for unity. That’s why I’m spending the next five months creating change and getting out the vote for gun sense champions who will protect our families and communities.
I don’t pretend to fathom the grief the families of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are feeling right now. But I can empathize with them, and I often do. When I was just 16 years old, I lost my friend, Hadiya Pendleton, to reckless gun violence. She was only 15 years old. Hadiya and a few other friends were trying to shelter from the rain in a playground near our Chicago high school when she was shot and killed on Jan. 29,2013. The bullets weren’t meant for her, but as so many of us have bitterly learned, bullets do not discriminate. In an instant, our community lost an unstoppable force of positivity. Because even at 15, Hadiya had convinced us all that we were going places.
She was going places, too. Hadiya had just performed at President Obama’s second inaugural parade the week before she was killed. In fact, on the day she was killed, she was celebrating the end of our final exams.
