Samuel Dubose and the Scarlet Letter

("The Shooting of Samuel Dubose")

It is a variant of the crime of "living while black". It is called "driving while black."  It is the insistent, irrefutable presumption that being black is invitation to wrongdoing. It is the immutable belief that in the next second, before you have time to react, you will be the next victim.

It is the implicit association test in real life informing us to shoot first and ask questions later when it involves persons of color.

It resides on every sidewalk, in every playground, in every car and in every step taken. It clings to every black man, woman or child like a scarlet letter. It removes individuality and inserts a stereotype into each encounter, each confrontation, each death piled on the death before it.

It exists in the minds and fingers of those who pull the trigger. It has happened again today, even as you read this, even if neither you or I know about it yet. It is endemic. It is epidemic. It is a national travesty and a national tragedy.